My DS had bacterial meningitis last year when he was 18 months old. After 12 days in isolation it was found that he had lost all his hearing, balance etc. He underwent surgery for bilateral cochlear implants 3 weeks later and it has been a lonnnnnnnnnnnng journey since that point.
My question relates to a little bombshell that his teacher of the deaf dropped on me earlier today. Whilst he has recovered well physically (back to walking, although running and overall postural stability is a bit ropey), his speech and language has (understandably) been massively affected by the meningitis. I have always remained positive about working very hard on his rehabilitation in order to close the gap between him and his peers and have actively been working on the premise that with continued support that he may effect a good recovery.
However, today his teacher of the deaf informed me that he was 18 months behind and in her opinion, he would never catch up his peers and that by this stage he would be expected to be progressing more and that I should ultimately face the reality that his speech delay is part of a developmental delay that I should recognise and accept. However, I just cannot believe that one professional can voice such an opinion. An opinion which runs contrary to what I have been told by his paediatrician who said that much development at this critical stage revolves around speech and language and that once he gets this, then he should be able to catch up.
I've been looking online and I just keep coming up to the same opinion that you just don't know with the child, and that no person can make predictions although the developmental delay is generally associated with younger babies and fitting. My coping mechanism has always been the idea that he can recover and I just feel incredibly delated and demotivated by this visit today.