I have been struggling for a few months to decide which therapy to focus on ‘the most’ with Veronika.

Veronika has been accessing therapy well since she was only a week old, 1st was speech therapy because Veronika found it incredibly difficult to feed, and then physio soon after….then when she was discharged from hospital at almost 6 weeks old, she was refered to Early Intervention as well as our local paed rehab service provider. Speech and physio continued, and soon after occupational therapy.

Just after Veronika’s 3rd birthday, Better Start for children with a disability initiative funding was introduced. Its funding for children under 7 years old, who have been diagnosed with certain medical conditions. It is $12,000 to spend on early intervention services and treatments(see the link)…

http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/our-responsibilities/disability-and-carers/program-services/for-people-with-disability/better-start-for-children-with-disability-initiative

When this funding started, and Veronika was ‘signed up’, we decided to start accessing some private therapy….I for some reason thought the $12,000 of better start funding would surely see Veronika through until she was 7 years old, but then I did the math, one hour each of occupational therapy, speech therapy and physio therapy per week = over $25,000 per year!!! So realistically $12,000 wasnt going to go anywhere near as far as I first thought. SO I set up a plan in my mind, as to how we could stretch the funding to make it last ‘as long as possible’….however getting Veronika ready to start school in February of this year was also a huge priority…and well that used up a fair bit of Veronika’s funding, but it was funding well spent.

Now I feel I am left with a decision to make, that no parent should ever have to make….

how do you decide which therapy is ‘more important’?…

We have a limited amount of Veronika’s Better Start funding left, and we need to make a decision what do we focus on? What I always thought were the 3 main things

walking independently,

talking or

eating…

but then there is also her fine motor skills, how she uses her hands, or rather doesnt! Then do we focus attention on her left hand(her hand affected by her cerebral palsy) to give her the best function we can, but then we also need to focus on her right hand, because even though that is her ‘good’ hand, her fine motor skills are very delayed mainly due to her low muscle tone….

so I feel I am left with a decision to make, and it’s not easy…