[Rhonda Roo]

This is my first time posting to this board.

I have a close to 3 year old who is not talking. He is an adoptee born in Guatemala. He was in foster care for the first 6-1/2 months, and we believe had very little interaction. It is strongly believed by his speech therapist and our pediatrician that our son is apraxia. He also has Sensory Integration Dysfunction.

My son only has 2 verbal words: Ma and dat (Mom and that). He has quite a collection of signs that he can use. We cut back on the signing about one year ago (my choice) to try and "motivate" him to try to use sounds. For the record, we did go from one word to two, but no other sounds. My son is usually very passive, almost always happy; very loving and affectionate. We recently added to our family a little 4-month old girl. We have truly gone out of way to include our son in this process, and to make certain that he continues to get the attention he needs. When he is around her with us right there, he is very affectionate. He wants to feed her the bottle, hold her, kiss her etc. Two days ago, I placed my son in his bed after he had fallen asleep. About 45 minutes later, I placed my daughter down in her crib for a nap. Both usually sleep about 2-1/2 to 3 hours in the afternoon. I stepped outside on my porch to straight up. I was out for about 5 to 10 minutes. When I came in, there stood my son crying, and I heard my daughter screaming. To make a long story short, he had climbed into her crib and poked both of her eyes to the point of drawing blood. I took her to the emergency room, and she will be fine in a day or two. Very scary, emotionally draining, etc. I am beating myself up for stepping outside the door. That will never happen again. I also will now lock her in her room whenever she is asleep so he cannot get in to her.

At first, I did not think him being angry is what caused this. He has had a fetish with eyes for about a year. He is always trying to touch people's eyes. I cannot go to a play group without a child coming to me saying my son poked them in the eyes. To the best of my ability I have been 100% consistent in correcting this. We have tried time outs, redirection, talks, and have even gone so far as slapping his fingers. I am at such a loss as what I need to do to best help my son.

Someone mentioned anger and frustration, and after a little more thought, yes, maybe it can be. The problem is this---how do I know. What can I do to redirect this? Every child behavior resource I go to gives me information on how to deal with a talking 3 year old, and their advice won't work because my child cannot tell me what is making him angry and he cannot tell me when he is feeling angry, he cannot say "no"--so that leaves me trying to figure out this puzzle piece on my own--both how to detect that the anger is there and how to handle it from that point on.

I'm sorry I'm so wordy here, but this was so not like my son. In fact, when I telephoned our Early Intervention Specialist she said she would have never in 100 years expected this call concerning my son.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Rhonda Roo

[lucyjoy]

Put an alarm on your sons bedroom door so if he wakes at night or during nap, he cannot wonder around and hurt himself or somebody else.

Find a therapist familiar with international adoption and attachment. This is a serious problem that needs addressed quickly. They can help you with non verbal ways to deal with your son to help facilitate a stronger attachment and to get that anger out that he has no words for. Unless there is a medical problem, this also will likely aid in his speech. Kids with attachment issues often show speech problems.

Is your daughter okay? Any permanant damage to her sight?
How frightening for her and for you. Can you move her crib into your room?

[Rhonda Roo]

I have a baby gate in the hallway, so the only rooms he can get into, is his and Liana's. My entire upstairs, bedrooms and bathrooms, are babyproofed. The bathroom doors are locked when not in use (He's not potty trained yet, so he doesn't need them at the moment.) Now that I have a latch on her door, this should never be an issue again.

We are having a behavior specialist come to our home on Dec. 7th. She is not only versed with adoption issues such as attachment, she is also exercised in SID and Apraxia. So, hopefully, I will get more answers then. She has requested I get a complete workup on him, genetic, etc. to rule out any other physical issues that could be at play here.

The white parts of her eyes were totally red with blood. My son always "goes" for the corners of the eyes. The doctor said that it was was scratches to the outside corners of the white parts of her eyes, and that the blood filled the remainder. He said that within 4 days it should all be gone. There not only was no permanent damage to her eyesight, there was no temporary damage to it either. I didn't know this, but the sight comes from all the colored part of the eye, not the whites. I guess that does make sense. It looks nastier than it is. She doesn't seem in pain at all, but she does not like the ointment I have to put in her eyes to safeguard against any possible infection. They looked somewhat better yesterday; and she is not up yet this morning so I can see if there is any more improvement.

We had a meeting with several specialists yesterday. Part of an MFE (Multi-Factor Evaluation) for his transition from Early Intervention into our school district's Early Childhood Center. They had a lot of advice for me. One I thought was excellent, which is when I had redirected him in the past, it was away from the person to a toy. Instead, they said the feel that his sensory dysfunction is driving this (not the obsession, but the too hard part); therefore, I am to redirect him away from the person's face, onto the person's shoulders. We'll see if this helps. They were able to see him go for the eyes during the eval. They felt it was more "Hey I like you, what do you feel like". More of a curiosity about them. I guess the biggest difference between the other scenarios and this one with our daughter is a baby that is laying on her back is not able to pull away to tell him "too hard".

I can move her crib into my room, but that would not have helped in this case as it was during nap time.


Thank you for your ideas and advice.

Rhonda Roo

[redmocha]

Rhonda,
I am a speech-languge pathologist. I work with children in your son's age group. Consider this: using signs actually increases a child's ability to communicate... helps them express themselves and not be frustrated and also reinforces the learning of how to produce the words verbally.
-- JC

[Cleopatrick]

I agree with redmocha. I'm the mom to a disabled daughter and I know her learning just three signs has helped her immensely. She was getting so frustrated with her inability to communicate anything with anyone that she would start ripping at her own hair or poking at her own eyes. She can wave bye bye, which she uses for three seperate things. She'll wave towards you if you are leaving, towards herself if she is leaving, or one finger means she's mad at you (or a toy, or the tv) and she wants you/it to leave. She also picks her tush up off the ground now when her diaper is wet and she's uncomfortable, and she sucks on her wrist if she's hungry. It's not much, especially for a five year old, but it's made a world of difference in her frustration.

[csw]

We love the DVD series at our local library called "Signing Time" by Rachel Coleman..fun music and kids signing..my daughter loved watching it and we all picked up alot of signs..