That's the thing, DF - you have already been through those goals. But as you said, you have to show willing in order to move through this stage and forwards.
klmno, I agree, our kids shouldn't be the ones that these people learn on. We need the top people, not the novices. But this is our reality. What I have found, though - when I play willing, do my utmost, make notes, diarise it, hand over copies of my notes (such as your very good example, DF, where you sat the kids down and went through the list) that is the feedback we need to give these people, to help them learn. And in my experience, about half of them do learn and can move on to become a genuine, effective support and ally. But that's over here.
One thing the novices have plenty of, that the experts do not - they have enthusiasm, idealism and drive. We can use that.
We went through this when difficult child 3 was first identified as having language delay. We'd had his name down to an assessment, but somewhere along the way his name fell of the waiting list and we didn't know. So when the authorities checked out my 'story' that we had difficult child 3's name down, they couldn't find it and accused me of lying. Then the ONLY speech pathology help we could get, was to attend a weekly class on "how to talk to your child, how to interact with your child so he learns to talk as children should". In vain did I protest that it was fiddling while Rome burned. At first they said to me, "You aren't talking to him enough, he is not getting the stimulation he needs, this child is emotionally neglected."
I said, "We interact with him all the time; I talk to him and play with him constantly. He has three older siblings that engage with him."
Their response then: "That could be the problem right there. He's not able to get a word in edgewise."
So I couldn't win. I was set up for failure. And channelled into that idiotic weekly class, for 8 weeks. No therapy permitted until I had "paid my dues". it was annoying, we were being told how to slup eggs and I knew how to be a good parent. But any parent who dropped out was dropped from access to therapy. Very, very wrong. One woman I knew dropped out because she had trouble getting there every week.
It was about week three of this idiocy when the dawn broke. Perhaps it was easier because it was a group situation. Each week the kids would go to one room with a child care worker and a therapist while us parents got a talking to in another. We were given a crash course in how to be a loving, playful parent. We were also told firmly, "Keep your phrases simple. Maybe your dialogue is too complex."
I considered this a possibility - I hated being talked down to as a kid and swore I would never talk down to my offspring. It's not a gee-gee, it's a horse. It's not a kitty-witty, it's a cat. it's not a moo-cow, it's a cow. But the speech therapist did teach me a few new things - babies sometimes need more rhyming patterns, alliteration, repetition of syllables. Word association. And if you focus on the main idea and not the rest of the sentence, you van sometimes communicate more effectively.
That was the theory. After the kids were brought back and we were made to put this into practice under the watchful eyes of the therapists, we were sent home to practice for a week. the following week we were put with our kids to begin with, while we did it again. That was when they saw what I needed them to see - difficult child 3 actually RESENTED this and would actively disengage when I tried their version of baby talk. We were playing with a Lego farmyard. difficult child 3 picked up a horse and posted it through the barn roof. "Horse on roof," I said. Therapist shook her head. I was still too complex. "Horse, roof," she patterned for me. I repeated it. difficult child 3 put down the horse and picked up a sheep. "Sheep," I said. He picked up a piece of fence. "Sheep, fence." He turned his back on me, put down the sheep, put down the fence and got up to wander around the room. I tried to call him back. "Look, here is a cow." He came back to me and took the cow. The therapist scolded me. "That sentence was too complex for him to hear," she said.
"But he came back because of it," I told her.
From that point she sat back and watched silently and stopped correcting me. I tried things her way for a while and we saw difficult child 3 cut me off when I tried it. Then I went back to how we did things at home, with me doing everything I could to engage him, and if I found something that worked I would do more of it. She came over to me afterwards, when the kids were taken downstairs again, and said, "I can see you are doing all the right things, according to what your son can handle. he is different; there is a problem there. You don't need this course but the system says you need to finish it, before we can set up the therapy."
I found that to be a very frustrating 8 weeks, but at the end of it difficult child 3 was put on the list for one-on-one speech therapy. We were also shunted in to a couple of other programs. The quality of the service was poor, but it was better than nothing. Just. We were at the beginning of the search for answers and help, not knowing what was available or what we needed.
My point it - I had to play willing, even though it was garbage, in order to get the help we desperately, urgently needed. And because we did the right things and also communicated the level of problems, they did change tack for us and made their help more appropriate.
It is a shame we can't just fire the people who don't get it right. The scary thing is, Mrsammler, is that Ms Ally in this situation is the best person DF has found in this system to date. We've been following her journey in this for a long time. It really is a case of "better the devil you know..."
We don't have the luxury of choice. All we can do, is educate and train the very people whose education and training should already be optimum, but isn't.
However, I have found that once we get these people on board and with a better understanding, we tend to do a lot better because that person's understanding is specific to our child.
We gotta win sometimes!
Marg