Seeking Speech Therapy and Thoughts About Starting School

At Rachel's craniofacial team appointment back in January, the Speech Therapist recommended speech therapy for Rachel. It wasn't bad enough to warrant going to Loma Linda weekly, but enough to seek help from the school district. Because we were in limbo about where Rachel would be going to school, we needed to wait to see where it was she'd go once accepted or denied. Once we learned she was accepted to the school Hannah is at, it was too late in the school year to seek out a speech therapy evaluation.

So, I was prepared the first day of school. I wrote a letter to the principal stating my request for an evaluation and then gave a little history on Rachel and her birth defect and how she's already had speech, etc, etc. I included a copy of the team report, highlighting the section from the speech therapist.

During Kindergarten Orientation on Tuesday, we got a chance to talk to Rachel's teacher. We briefly told her about Rachel. I wanted her to be aware of her birth defect especially because sometimes when she smiles big, you can see that her front top teeth are jacked up, in addition to her nose being a little off. I also made her a copy of the letter to the principal and the team report and let her know we were seeking a speech evaluation. She told us that she's had a cleft affected child once in recent years and the district at that time refused to evaluate him/her. But the district has a new speech therapist now and things could very well be different. If Rachel is denied speech therapy by the school, we'll seek it elsewhere, but it'd be nice if she was given it through the school.

I have to say, I'm a little nervous about Rachel and school and the other kids. Up to this point, she's really had no one ever tease her about her nose. Kindergarten could be the year it starts. Maybe not. We talked extensively to the plastic surgeon back in January about having a nose revision done before school started, but the things they would work on weren't the things we were concerned about as far as the appearance of her nose. It would have been an unnecessary surgery at this time. We need to wait for her face to grow some more before anything noticeable would be done. On an interesting note, the tooth we refer to as her 'special tooth' which is located sideways up in her gum is starting to straighten and come down! We're not sure what that means, but it has to be better than staying high up in the gum.

Other than those worries, I know she'll be a success in Kindergarten!