The Hearing Test

Quentin's hearing test went well on Thursday at the Children's Hospital. The tubes he had put in are working efficiently, he can hear perfectly. We did not do a test before the tubes were put in his ears, so we don't have a basis for comparison, unfortunately. So, yes, he has speech delay (they can see from listening to him) but because of his age, and because he can hear now, he's low priority for speech therapy through the Children’s hospital here. They will submit a request, but they warned me there is a TWO (crap!) year waiting list for speech therapy. The lady we had the appointment with did say that maybe because of everything that he's been through with his Laryngomalacia and everything else, that maybe he might go through the system quicker than 2 years, but it's not an urgent need to get him speech therapy, it's more to help he move along/catch up. She told me I could go private, if I had insurance through work (which I don't), or I could check with my local CLSC (health and social service centres) - as some CLSC's have resources like an "in house" speech therapist. I stopped in at the CLSC in my area and they don't have in house, or the girl didn't know what I was talking about, but gave me the phone number to call their social work department, as they might know further info, or might have a good direction to point me in. So I did. And someone called me back on Friday and I picked up a questionnaire to fill out. They would basically only help us if Quentin is behind developmentally in 2 areas or more. After reading over the form/questionnaire, to me, it seems that there is more than one area that Quentin is behind in (for example he cannot walk up stairs, he crawls them, and doesn't do a bunch other things in the gross motor list, so he would fail that section and be behind in that too... as an example). I filled out the questionnaire in full this weekend, some things I had to do activities with Quentin to see what he does, and I have an appointment end of April to meet with them - there was a 2-3 week wait for an appointment, which isn't bad). So we'll see if I get anywhere with the CLSC. Lastly, I can check to see if my daycare coordinator has any resources, because some CPE's ('Centre de Petite Enfance' (Early Childhood Center)) (though we're not a CPE by name and not 7$ a day(7$ daycare is government subsidized completely) (I pay $16.50 per kid per day at our daycare), but we're not private either so I might have access to CPE benefits, like speech therapy, but I have to call the government and see what resources we are entitled to) have resources for speech therapists to come to daycare, to help your child, and it's free. I think I'll try to push to see if that can help me out in any way whatsoever. Worst case, I might take a private appointment, just to get Quentin assessed to see where he's at, and if they can give me some tools to work with him, so that I can do it on my own, and just pay that 300$-400$ for the initial assessment for a speech therapist. It's expensive. Private speech therapy after assessment runs 100$ an hour.

And that's that. I am so glad he's hearing well, and the tubes are working. He is still young enough that he can catch up and not have any effects with his speech, but you never know, and if I can correct it, now would be the time, since he's still very young (28 months, 1 week).

I’m trying to be as pro-active as I can. I am glad this was all caught now, though, we might have been able to avoid all this had our doctor taken my concerns more seriously, and if they were, maybe his adenoids and tubes surgery would have been a year earlier, when he would have been learning to talk, and this all wouldn’t have been an issue at all. Maybe some of this is because he was premature, but who knows. All I know is I will try to do all I can for my son, and that’s all that really matters now.