Well, that is the main bit about the process, isn’t it? Knowing what your rights are as a parent, plus knowing where and how to get the therapy the child needs.

Plus there are the other factors: socialization, dealing with crowds, finding a dentist willing to work with a child who has sensory integration issues, and just finding educational situations that are not part of a school that are actually useful! (we were lucky with having local community centers that had small classes for kids and understanding instructors, the same goes for swimming classes)

Then there is the search for good therapists, and even better therapy for a budget! One other book I think was very useful was Patricia McAleer Hamaguchi’s book on Childhood Speech, Language and Listening Disorders. In the back was a list of resources for parents, including the suggestion to check for local college training of therapists. My local university has a special preschool set up to work with special ed. kids. In the 1970s it concentrated on Down’s Syndrome, now it works with autism (it is called the Experimental Education Unit).

This is the stuff that should be explained to all parents with disabled kids. I was fortunate in that our son was referred to speech therapy when he was just over two years old (back in the days when it the “wait and see” attitude was common). And from the speech therapist we learned of the special ed. preschool my son ended up in…. And then from the parent meetings at the preschool I learned of the Scottish Rite Center for Childhood Language Disorders (now called Rite Care)… and on and on.

This was all before the internet.

When we did get internet in 1996, I found more good information from the Compuserve Disabilities Forums. Back when the information was actually useful (and when I first encountered the Wrights of WrightsLaw).

This is the kind of stuff that is in the three books I mentioned (oh, make that four if you include Patti Hamaguchi’s book!). This is where you blog excels, showing how to deal with the everyday and the education. The same with Susan Senator’s blog (and book! I forgot to mention her book! It is also a good recommendation!).

Anyway, Happy Mother’s Day.

I spent mine in the garden, and my teenage children all gave me gifts (bought my husband, sorry even as they get older some things stay the same).

@Bonnie,
I think I’ll let the comment you note stand, though if there are more comments with language of the sort not appropriate for my college classroom, I’ll have to moderate them

@Cliff,

Thanks for saying it!

Sorry, had to say it.

Cliff