The Curious Case of Aiden Lesnick

Hi Everyone,

Thank you everyone for all your love and support during all this. It really means so much to us, and brings us comfort as we go through the trials and tribulations of this entire situation. Will has appropriately deemed this "The Curious Case of Aiden Lesnick". :)

Last Wednesday, Aiden started private speech therapy. For the first session, it went well, though Aiden was very reserved. However, IMMEDIATELY following the session, he started talking like crazy. More than he was. It was quite interesting. Over the weekend he continued to talk, label, and surprise us in so many ways. Yesterday (Monday) was Aiden's second private Speech Therapy session. OH MY GOODNESS what a difference!!! He was amazing. I won't describe it too much yet because I have a letter from the therapist which describes it so beautifully. Yesterday, we were sort of gearing up mentally for the meeting scheduled today (Tuesday) with Early Intervention Services. In preparation for that meeting, I thought it would be helpful if Aiden's therapist Jane wrote a brief letter detailing Aiden's weird and rapid progress. Mainly because the meeting we attended today was reporting on the Aiden they assessed 1 month ago. An entirely DIFFERENT Aiden. Here are some of the things she said:

"I have seen Aiden Lesnick for two, 30 minute speech-language therapy sessions. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that I was working with two different children.

During the first session, Aiden did not greet me and used very little eye contact. The few words that he used were all imitated and were typical of echolalia. Aiden did not comment on things in his environment and he did not make any requests. Aiden’s attention span for tasks was very short except when we played with cars. Aiden had a very flat affect—showed very little emotion.

During the second session, Aiden came in with a smile, looked at me, and said “Hi” when he was given a prompt. When given a verbal prompt, Aiden was able to attend to tasks, name common objects, and use short phrases and sentences. Aiden made a few requests and said a few things spontaneously. Aiden’s demeanor was very different than it was in the first session. His eye contact was much improved and he smiled and clapped his hands appropriately during songs and a game of bowling."

She does go on in the letter to say that he is still speech/language delayed and will benefit highly with more help of course.

So today we went to our Early Intervention meeting. In attendence was the developmental specialist who assessed Aiden, a speech therapist, and a staffing specialist. Everyone was so warm and kind. They first reported on Aiden's results, but acknowledged that they understand he is different now. Then they read the letter that was written by Jane, our private speech therapist. With all that new knowledge they re-wrote (with us) new goals for Aiden that are more appropriate with his new skills that he has re-aquired. They explained to us that Aiden has qualifed for FREE speech therapy 2x per week for 30 minutes. He has also qualified for part time Developmentaly Delayed school. We did find out that free speech is a Group Speech environment, not 1:1. SO... we are SO happy that he is getting the 1:1 therapy already through the private practice. We intend to keep that going along with the free group therapy. We were offered two options. 1) just speech therapy - this would be done at East Lake Elementary where Anna goes to school. 2) Developmentally Delayed school at Bonneville Elementary where he would get speech during the school time. This would be 2 1/2 hours per day. Not a full day each day.

Our dilemma really is towards the Developmentally Delayed school. All the therapists agree that children learn from their immediate environment. We are concerned that if we put Aiden in a classroom with children that may have more severe delays or behavioral problems, that this could affect him negatively. At the same time, it would be a small group setting where Aiden would get WAY more attention and focus. hmm... We decided to leave the meeting without deciding yet. This means we have to go back downtown to sign the papers when we figure out what we are doing. We really feel we want to OBSERVE the actual class Aiden would be joining at Bonneville Elementary before we agree to put him there.

So, Will and I went to Panera for lunch to talk things over, and just de-compress. Sitting next to us was Anna's Sunday School teacher. She said hello, and engaged us in conversation, and asked us about Aiden. Her friend sitting opposite her contributed to the conversation by letting us know her son had serious delays a few years ago, and goes to a school nearby called UCP (http://www.ucpcfl.org/). She spoke so highly of the school, and then told us that it is a charter school, and if Aiden has qualified through Orange County (as he has) then it would be FREE to send him there! Oh my, something else to investigate and ponder. Anyone find it strange and interesting that we ended up next to this woman in Panera RIGHT AFTER our meeting at Early Intervention services. Wow! She gave us their business card which she had with her, and Will and I decided to run over there before picking up Aiden from school. We went in, and requested a referral to speak with someone there. We were told that we would be called back within 48 hours.

We picked up Aiden, who had a pretty good day today at school. He just LOVES it there. We spoke with his teacher who loves having Aiden in class, but did express that sometimes she wishes she could do MORE for him, but with the class size and her lack of qualifications that folks would have at the special school, she sometimes is frustrated. At the same time, Aiden doesn't "stand out" often in class as "different", and for the most part does very well there. We did discuss the fact that on Mon/Wed/Fri at Aiden's current school there are only 5 children in the class. So.. we could move days and have him in a smaller class setting so the teacher can work more closely with him. hmm....

While we were driving to pick up Anna from school, we got our call from UCP. 48 hours? More like 30 minutes! Wow, quite impressive!!! They asked some questions, and explained that they are having a meeting on Friday and will find out if there is currently space for Aiden. If so, we'll go in and speak with them.

We also spoke with the staffing person over at Bonneville Elementary. We arranged to go TOMORROW to observe the class that Aiden would be in if we chose this route. So.. we'll see what we think about that option tomorrow. So much to think about!

As I see it, we have 4 options:
1) Pass on the special school, keep him in his current school, and have therapy 4x per week for 30 minutes (2 group, 2 private)

2) Accept special school at Bonneville where he would get group therapy 2x per week, while continuing private therapy 2x per week.

3) If an option, send him to UCP where he would get therapy 2x per week there, while continuing private therapy 2x per week.

4) Pass on special school, but change days at his current school for smaller class size, and have therapy 4x per week for 30 minutes (2 group, 2 private)

To be honest, we have NO idea what to do. We really don't. We are torn. We are confused. Aiden is changing so much everyday, that we really don't know what would be best for him. We want someone to just give us an answer, but the fact of the matter is, there is no right or wrong answer.

If there is anyone reading this who has any information on any of this, or the different schools, opinions and feedback are welcome.

We don't want to wait too long to make a decision, but we want it to be the right one.

A side note: Anna's Sunday school teacher couldn't say enough about Anna. She can't believe after only being in Sunday school just a few weeks, that Anna virtually knows the entire Hebrew Alphabet. Anna has studied that completely on her own, and is pretty much caught up to where the rest of the kids are at who have been going all year. That's our girl!

Sorry this one was so long, but I guess I had a lot to say. :)

More soon.

Love, Holly