It’s been a long haul. Some days, I’ve been ready to give up, to walk away, to say “Never mind. We’ll just take care of this ourselves.” But God has been gently pushing us to continue in the fight, so we have. This afternoon, the battle is over. Victory is ours…or, more appropriately, God’s. And Logan’s.
As you know, Logan gets speech therapy from our school district. He’s there 45 minutes a week. His speech therapist is awesome, and she loves Logan. We’ve tried many things to get him the assistive technology he needs, but until May, when he qualified for more therapy, there wasn’t any way to do that. Then, pieces started coming together. We had Logan’s motor skills tested, to make sure that he was staying on track. He’s not. He qualified for occupational therapy (OT) for his fine motor skills. It was just the opening we needed. His IEP needed to be rewritten, and could be done to include the necessity of the FM system. (He’s used a loaner from the local hospital, but it had to go back.) So we did that. Included a letter from his audiologist stating that he needs this FM system for full academic use, including time at home. And the school district employee responsible for making that decision balked. (You can read about that here) We wrote her a polite, respectful letter, delineating the portions of federal law that required her to take the IEP team’s recommendation under careful consideration instead of dismissing it outright. We didn’t win any friends.
But, apparently, persistence and prayer pay off. She knew we were right, and started requesting strange pieces of information, things she already had in her possession. Each time, we responded politely with “That’s on page x of document y.” In the meantime, the system was ordered, and our SLP picked it up and tucked it away in her office. Today, the phone rang as I was fixing dinner. It was the SLP, and her first question was “Are you sitting down? I have approval for Logan to have the FM system at home for the summer!” Tomorrow, we will stop by the elementary school in the neighborhood and pick it up. Tomorrow, we will plug it in and get it charged. Tomorrow, we will start using it. Tomorrow, Logan will have more access to language.
There aren’t words to describe the joy. I finished fixing dinner with tears of gratitude on my face. God, ever faithful, has again shown His great love to a child and a family. Logan is in complete awe that God has answered his prayer. And he cannot wait to start using his new FM system.
Even better? It’s just in time for a new adventure. Stay tuned…Logan’s going to spend the summer using technology to help with his speech therapy too. He starts on Tuesday. And I can’t wait. If it can do half of what it appears to be able to do, this could be a life-changing summer for our little guy.
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