Thoughts from Sally Prouty
“It’s been quite a journey for us. We learned about the concept of intervention, fortunately, when our son was months old and we asked school districts for an Intervener. School districts had never heard of interveners. So my husband and I became trail blazers. We, I don’t want to say fought, we were “respectfully demanding”. We didn’t give up. We kept pushing and eventually we were able to get an intervener for our son. We had the most wonderful team in the world, the best OT, the best PT, the best vision teacher, deaf-hard of hearing teacher, O&M specialist, and speech person, but without a way to bring that information to your child, information doesn’t exist for your child. So an intervener would communicate that information, allowing him to learn. It’s important to trust yourself. You can do this. I didn’t think that I could do this, but here I am 28 years later. You’ve got to remember that you are working with experts in the field of education, but trust yourself that you are an expert on your child, and you know what’s best for your child. Be an equal member of the team, and you can do it.”
Thoughts from Kim Lauger
“Learning to navigate the IEP process is something that happens over time. But we have to just start. Because it’s through that process that we learn together with our child’s team on what we need to do to make education successful for them. It’s not a one-way to do it for any one child, we just need to start. So you might be afraid that I don’t know how to do this, I know my child needs and intervener. But I encourage you to learn through these materials and just get started with your team. So the intervener is a very important part of the team and is essential for my child to access his educational curriculum but that happens within the construct of the entire team. So the more the team understands deafblindness the more powerful the process of intervention becomes. We were lucky in that our deafblind project started an intervener training program when my son was 2 ½ years old. So he has had an intervener from the beginning of his educational career. The people that I work with have not been so lucky. They are in districts or perhaps with schools who believe that the intervener leads to dependence, they don’t believe in the philosophy, and they discourage the families. Or they may have a place that has lots of education about deafblindness but they believe that there’s no need to have that one to one with that expertise. What I encourage you to pay attention to is does your child have access? Continue to look at, no matter which school it is, when your child is in that setting, do they have continual access to the educational curriculum and what their peers are doing?”
Thoughts from Melanie Knapp
“My son, Christian, didn’t get an intervener until he was 21 years old. She was skilled, trained, had experience, and I don’t care what anybody else tells you, it does matter. He was smart. He needed that person that could bring the world to him and his communication mode; and Christian went from gestures to calendar symbols to learning signs, having friends, getting out in the community, having his own vending machine business, and people knowing him and Christian knowing other people. And this was all within the first year that he was with an intervener so I can’t even tell you how happy it made our family that we were fortunate enough to have an intervener.”
Thoughts from Cheryl LeVasseur
“I encourage you to seek out an intervener and use the suggestions that we have put out there to help you through that process because it’s never to late to get an intervener and to have that for your child.”
Thoughts from Clara Berg
“Seeing Kenny the way he is acting now as an adult, I just think how helpful it would have been for him to have an intervener when he was going through school years. Did I have to wait until he was an adult to follow my instincts and to really give him all the services that he needed, to have to pay out of pocket to have somebody trained as an intervener, somebody who would know how to deal with him? Seeing what Kenny’s doing today, seeing the way he acts, he grew up as an adult and how productive he feels and how happy he is. He has a full life. What a difference it would have made to have Kenny with a person that would have been properly trained many, many years ago when he was in the school. It would have made a big, big difference. If I could dream today on having Kenny start all over again, I think I would have fought much harder and I would not have let anybody, allowed anybody to tell me “no” he cannot, because I knew Kenny can. We talk about behaviors being communication. Believe me it’s true. We could have enjoyed so many more years of Kenny being happy and really showing what he can do just because he has somebody to tell him about the world, to be the connection between here and the shadow and the silence around him. So if there is anything or something we need to fight when the kids are young it is to convince everybody that we know our child best, and since we know our child best the right thing to do is to have him have an intervener.”
Thoughts from Vivecca Hartman
“You know if only we just knew it all in the beginning, it would have been so wonderful. If we could have started out with a healthy child, without all that past experience to overcome. I hope that the goal of this project is that other families can learn from our experiences because it’s real, it’s vallant, it works. Children can prosper and do wonderful things and grow and be happy. A trained intervener is something you cannot advocate for more strongly. Because when you see one interact with a child, it is just heartwarming to see that child come alive, where they were not before. I would just implore each of you to take that step, that initiative, to go out and seek and find and make it readily available in your area earlier rather than later, because the impact of that knowledge, earlier on for your child, can be such a wonderful thing.”
More Comments From Parents About Interveners
“We feel the intervener program is absolutely essential for our child. We are afraid that if our child starts preschool without her intervener, she will regress and very little learning will take place. We have learned through our experience with our child, that when she is confronted with strange settings or people, she has a tendency to shut down and close out the world. Having her intervener with her would make school a familiar setting. She needs her intervener with her to help her understand and digest what takes place at preschool.”
“Our child was placed in the Intervener program which we found to be outstanding. Our only suggestion for making this excellent program even better would be to provide an Intervener for the transition from a home to a school setting for deafblind children. Because of our son’s multiple handicaps and inexperience in a social setting, we were very apprehensive of sending him to school. Although the teacher-pupil ratio is very low in our son’s school compared to a regular school setting, it is impossible for the teacher to attend to him as much as he needs to be helped. Our son has some very complicated feeding problems. In order for our son to eat, we have had to take him home from school early each day to feed him. If an Intervener could have accompanied our son to school, she could have assisted with his feedings; and he would have had the benefit of attending school for the entire day. The intervener could also have assisted him in adjusting to the school setting.”
“I have a son who is hearing and sight impaired. He was in the intervener program for a short time, and really enjoyed and benefited from his involvement with the program. However, he was cut due to his age. He has severe problems and has been unable to attend school unsupervised. He receives very little on the home-bound program. I was going to school with him, until another son was diagnosed with a form of leukemia. My son would benefit greatly from having an intervener who could accompany him to classes.”
“Having an intervener work with my child when he enters the local school system would be a great asset to him, myself, and, I am sure, the teacher in charge of our child. This intervener would be able to help our child reach his potential and help him have a successful experience in the school system. Our child would not be able to function positively without a one-on-one situation in the school.”
“For approximately the last six months, our family has had the opportunity to participate in the intervener program. The progress our child has made over the last six months has been remarkable. Our child’s progress has always been slow, often weeks and months have passed with no noticeable change in his level of ability. However, over the past several months our son has made obvious progress in such areas as self-help, language, and fine motor. Therapists who have worked with our son for almost two years on a one-hour per week basis have commented, in amazement, at improvements they see in our son each week, where prior to our intervener, months would pass with no obvious improvement. Our pediatrician saw our son last week after a six-month span and couldn’t believe this was the same little boy. We feel our son is at a critical point in his development. Without a one-onone situation in the school, we fear our child would be at risk of being at the very least, ignored, his needs neglected due to lack of ability to express them, and at very worst, abused, possibly by other unsupervised students.”
“It (the intervener program) is the most wonderful program we’ve ever been in!! As the time came closer for my child to go to school, I worried a lot. Would the school know her needs? Who would be watching over her? Would the other children hurt her? Would she have one on-one time with a teacher? Would she just be sitting there all by herself during the classroom time? An intervener was the answer. This program is wonderful.”
“The idea of the interveners going to school with these children is fantastic. This would give my son the opportunity to have a set of eyes and ears to absorb all that the school systems can give. It would also be an aid to the teachers in instructing these children. It would comfort me to know that my child would have the constant one on one that he needs.”