Play Group with Kate!

At the beginning of the school year, Kate was tested for speech delay. When she was around 18 months I began to suspect she was a little behind speech-wise but decided to wait until after she turned two to see if her speech would develop further. Her 2nd birthday came and went and still her speech was not coming along as I would have liked. So I made the call to Parents in Partnership, a program through Garland ISD that is for children 0-3 years old with developmental delays. Grant started with this program when he was 15 months old. If the child qualifies for the program, a therapist comes to your house 1x/week to work with your child.

She was tested the beginning of the school year and at the end of the evaluation, the team told me she barely qualifies and it was basically up to me whether or not we wanted her to qualify. She tested right on target in every area (there are 5: cognition, self-help, gross motor, fine motor, and receptive & expressive language) except expressive language (talking) she was 4 months behind. They have to be 4 months or greater to qualify for services. Well, it didn't take me long to decide for her to qualify. While we don't see her as delayed as Grant, she is behind speech-wise and if anything, this will be a positive time for her speech-wise. She picks up a lot of things from Grant, both good and bad. Anyway, this is just a little background for you on where we are at with Kate!

There is a play group that meets almost every Friday during the school year for kids in the program and Kate and I started going towards the end of last year. We never went with Grant because Grant was still taking a nap in the mornings. I have to admit, it's not my first choice of places to go with Kate but I have found it to be a great hour of me and Kate time and for that it is totally worth it. In a way it gets me out of my comfort zone. Most families that come are ESL families and for a lot of them this is the only time their kids get to be around other kids. That is really hard for me to imagine, as Kate is around kids all of the time. Every time I go, it really makes me realize how blessed I am to have so much support through my church friends, to have family close by, and to have things like a gym membership where Kate can be around other kids, too.

It is great for me to see how she interacts with other children and I have found her to be quite the social butterfly. She is somewhat shy but likes being with and around other children. We sing a couple songs, which she loves, and a story is always read from a really big book that everyone can see. In between a bunch of toys are dumped in a big pile and the kids just go for it. Each week there is usually a different theme like farm animals, food & cooking, and this last time it was cars. You can see from the pictures she was having fun playing with the cars. I know this is typical for her age but she was very possesive of "her" cars and if someone tried to take "hers" away she would quickly tell them "mine". At the end every kid gets a sticker and Kate makes sure that she gets one.


We are thankful for Beth, Kate's speech therapist, who comes each week to our home. Kate loves "Be" and always get silly when she comes at first. When you think of Kate, please pray with us for her speech to continue to develop as it should and for wisdom in which direction to take as she approaches her 3rd birthday in July. At that time she will age out of the program and will be tested for speech therapy through public school where she would go 1-2 times a week (or something like that). Other possibilities might include starting NACD with her, the program that we are doing with Grant. At this point I'm not sure if I could handle two kids on program but if it is what she needs, I will do what it takes. Thanks, friends, for reading this long post and for supporting us with your prayers!