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November 2009
Daniel is such a loving child which really is amazing considering he spent much of his life in institutions. He definitely has his favorite adults with whom he wants to hug and cuddle. Daniel will play with his brothers if they initiate the interaction, however he much prefers adults. We are encouraging Daniel to play with his brothers and to stick with an activity such as rolling a ball back and forth, or racing Hot Wheels down the track. The other boys will play with Daniel as long as he can maintain his attention. Daniel, of course, will always look for the adult in the room before playing with the boys. We continue to use sign language when we interact with Daniel although he is yet to show any comprehension of our signing.
July 2009
Daniel had a fun week at Special Camp for Special Kids. Even though he was much lower functioning then most of the other campers, he had a great time. This wonderful camp provides each camper with his or her own counselor. The counselors are teenage volunteers who are just as excited to be at camp as the campers. Daniel was all smiles each day he arrived at camp. He participated in all kinds of community activities including going to the beach and Knott's Berry Farm. Daniel will finish out his summer participating in activities with the family. Daniel loves being outside and we can hardly stop him from walking out the front door when he wants to go outside. This summer Daniel will go to Wild River, Soak City, Knott's Berry Farm, Wild Animal Park, Disneyland and the beach among other local places of interest. Daniel should definitely have a nice tan by the end of summer!
March 2009
Daniel still amazes us with the skills he has despite having no form of traditional communication. Daniel can sort items by color, size and shape. He can out together simple puzzles and build with blocks. Daniel can even use a spray bottle and a rag to clean the table! We are going to try toilet training this month at home and at school. The biggest hurdle is Daniel continues to try to pull out his Mic-Key button (g-tube) when he is bored or frustrated. We have to figure out how Daniel can sit on the toilet with his Mc-Key button covered in some way. If exposed, Daniel will surely pull it out. We continue to sign with Daniel in hopes that one day he will make the connection that he sign has a meaning.
November 2008
Daniel still does not have any way to communicate other than facial expressions, and grabbing at items. We continue to use sign language with him in every environment. We have also tried using picture cards and symbol cards for Daniel to make choices. Most of the time Daniel doesn't even seem to pay attention to our signs. he ignores the cards even more. Although his vision is good and he can make decent eye contact, Daniel just doesn't seem to get the concept of back and forth communication. The only way we are able to tell Daniel "no" or "stop" is to literally move him away from what he is doing. The only way Daniel can show us what he wants or what he likes is by playing repeatedly with an object or by smiling. In the community Daniel usually goes with the flow. He is generally happy with any activity he is participating in and never indicates a preferred person or location. I believe Daniel has the ability to communicate in a more sophisticated way than he is now using now but I am frustrated that I can't figure out how to teach him. If anyone has any ideas about working with a Deaf multi handicapped, severely developmentally delayed child please e-mail me your ideas. I am willing to try almost anything to get his communication skills developed.
September 2008
Daniel had an excellent summer. He spent a lot of time in the water at Wild Rivers, Soak City or the local beach. Daniel loves playing in the water. The difficulty is trying to keep him from pulling his g-tube out.
Most every time his g-tube site is exposed, Daniel tries to pull it out. He has succeeded so many times that the site has already several surgical revisions. We are working on getting Daniel a specially tailored wet suit to wear when he is at the pool or the beach. This way he would be appropriately dressed and his g-tube site would be covered. Besides playing in the water, Daniel enjoyed going to various amusement parks and children's museums. He continues to visit with his biological family monthly.
Daniel is back in school with a new class and a new teacher. We are hopeful that Daniel will continue to be exposed to sign language at school as he is at home.
May 2008
Yeah!! We finalized Daniel's adoption in mid-April.
Finally! We thought that day would never come. Of course
the adoption itself was very uneventful. We were in and
out of the courtroom in less than 10 minutes. It took us
90 minutes to drive to the court house! Because Daniel
has no idea about adoption, or why we were sitting
around in big chairs in an unfamiliar building that day,
we celebrated the occasion with a trip to Toys-R-Us!
Daniel loved picking out a couple of new toys then
coming home and playing with them. We are delighted to
finally have closure with Daniel's adoption. Although
there were no glitches in the process, Daniel's adoption
took longer than most of other children. As we know each
child's case and each county or country in which the
child is managed handles the adoption process
differently. We are just happy to get the adoption over
with and move on with being Daniel's forever family.
February 2008
We continue to struggle with new ways to teach Daniel some form of communication. Daniel has yet to show a connection between using American Sign Language and getting his needs met. Since Daniel is profoundly Deaf he has essentially been living in a vacuum his whole life. Apparently very few attempts have been made previously to work on giving Daniel a means to communicate. At nine years old, sadly so much critical learning time has already passed Daniel by. Nevertheless we continue to bombard Daniel with sign language and hope that one day he will make the connection!
Still no finalization date for Daniel's adoption. Its been months since we were promised a date to sign adoption placement paperwork. We are sad that Daniel has seemed to slip through the cracks most of his life. Social Services does not seem in any hurry to close out his case. In many ways it doesn't matter to Daniel one way or another. We believe he knows us as his family. For us, Daniel has always been our son since the day we met him. It would just be nice to finalize Daniel's adoption and know that Daniel would officially and legally be our son.
November 2007
Still no finalization date for Daniel's adoption but we are still hopeful that we will be assigned a court date before the end of the year. In the meantime we are continuing to work with the school district on appropriate ways to teach Daniel language. We were hopeful the new school and classroom would be better equipped to work with Daniel than the previous school, unfortunately this has not proven the case. We continue to be frustrated by the lack of general knowledge the teaching staff has when working with children who have several developmental delays. It appears the current teaching and support staff have NO IDEA how to help a child with developmental delays and a hearing impairment learn language. A recent visit to the classroom left me speechless. I was amazed that the teacher seemed clueless on how children develop language and thus had no skills to teach Daniel! In any case I will be advocating for another change of classroom placement. Daniel is almost nine years old and I believe that his window of opportunity to develop language is shrinking. I know that I must advocate aggressively so that our son will have the best opportunity to maximize his learning potential.
September 2007
Well, we don't have a court date yet, but are promised that Daniel's adoption will be finalized by the end of the year! Daniel had a busy summer. He continued to visit his biological family twice a month. We are trying to make the visits more fun for everyone so we have moved them from a boring office at social services to a local Chuck-E-Cheese! After summer school Daniel often went to the local water park or the beach. He absolutely loves water play and just can't get enough. Also Daniel went to a number of summer release movies and to a few plays. Daniel enjoys going almost anywhere. After breakfast he waits by the front door waiting for the ACCESS bus. This month Daniel started at a new school which we hope will be better equipped to meet Daniel's unique developmental and sensory needs.
June 2007
We are moving toward completing Daniel's adoption. We should have a court date before the end of summer! In the mean time Daniel continues to have twice monthly visits with his biological family. We will likely continue these visits following Daniel's adoption. It is very clear that Daniel's biological family is interested in Daniel's well-being and are very supportive of the adoption plan. We believe that our boys can't have too many loving people in their lives.
April 2007
Daniel enjoyed our Easter activities. He especially enjoyed the Easter Egg Hunt and opening the plastic eggs to discover what was inside. More and more Daniel seems to be coming out of his shell. He is more willing to try new activities and seems to have less anxiety in new environments.
We also found out that Daniel's hearing loss is severe. Apparently he can hear some sounds but he does not hear enough for oral speech or general environmental safety awareness. For eight years Daniel hasn't been exposed to any functional language training and has basically lived in a vacuum. Right now he is not using sign language, pointing, or any other typical strategy to communicate. We have begun using American Sign Language with Daniel at home. We also plan to move his educational placement to a hard-of-hearing/Deaf classroom where he will have the opportunity to be exposed to sign language on a consistent basis at school. We hope with all of this exposure to sign language, Daniel will begin to catch-on and start using language to communicate. We believe that Daniel has the ability with our support!
February 2007
Daniel has been seeing a bunch of medical specialists lately to try to determine the full scope of his disabilities. He has been a real trouper as he has been poked and prodded by strangers over the past couple of months. We are still trying to determine the level of Daniel's hearing loss as well as whether or not he has seizures. His move to our home required him to cross counties and as a result we are also having somewhat of a difficult time getting occupational and physical therapy services established.
Daniel continues to amaze us with his loving and warm nature. He makes sure that we all get our fill of hugs throughout the day. Daniel is a delightful little boy and we are so happy to have him a part of our family. He was definitely worth the wait.
December 2006
Daniel continues to feel more and more comfortable with the family. He seeks out his favorite brothers and is always ready for some "rough-housing." Daniel also shows his attachment by preferring mom and dad to strangers. Daniel is almost always happy and he absolutely loves going outside. Daniel has enjoyed looking at all of the holiday lights and listening to holiday music. We have also seen improvement in Daniel's self-help skills. He is beginning to participate in his own dressing and undressing routine.
October 2006
Daniel has joined the family with gusto! He is quite a loving and active brother. The older boys are enjoying the opportunity to play with Daniel and even read him bedtime stories. Daniel is very happy to participate in all of the family activities. Daniel is ready to try anything and is constantly on the go. He especially liked visiting the water parks and attending a birthday party last month. Daniel is now attending a regular education kindergarten class. It will certainly be interesting watching Daniel become more involved with the various activities this family has to offer. We are sure we will see Daniel make awesome growth developmentally and socially over the next several months.
July 2006
We are FINALLY meeting with social workers in early August. The social workers want to tour our home and meet the other kids in the family. Following this visit we hope to schedule placement steps with Daniel.
We are excited to be moving forward on this placement and look forward to the day that we can officially call Daniel our son.
May 2006
The county continues to express their interest in placing Daniel with our family once Jim is discharged from the hospital. We hope that Daniel will be placed with us this summer and will have several months to adjust before starting school. The boys keep asking when they get to meet their "new brother." We can't wait until we have that date secured.
March 2006
We are still looking forward to the day that we get to meet Daniel
(6). The placement steps were postponed while Jim is in the hospital.
Since Jim is not slated to be discharged until at least May, it appears
that Daniel's placement will take place during the summer.
We are very sad that Daniel isn't with us yet,
but look forward to spending our first summer together real soon.
January 2006
We can't believe it, even though we were matched with Daniel in October 2005, we are still waiting for a placement date with Daniel.
Due to some mix-ups with Daniel's paperwork he is still living in a nursing facility and we are still waiting to bring him home. We are hopeful that a date will at least be set prior to the end of the month but we are uncertain how realistic that wish is to hope for at the moment.
When Daniel does arrive he will be attending the local neighborhood school as a fully-included first grade student. Everything is ready to go, all we need is Daniel to join us.
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