Today, the wonderful Janat Bebb visited Angharad at home to deliver ACE's last Portage session. Jan is a CDA (Child Development Assistant) and is part of the local Child Psychology Department. Janat said that in all her time doing the job she's only known of one or two other kids who have reached this "out of criteria" stage and had their Portage stopped in advance of the due date which, in Angharad's case, would have been September 2009.
This is fantastic news in just about every way - despite her DS, Angharad does not have learning difficulties and hence doesn't now require Portage. Still, we'll miss Jan. Apart from her professionalism and friendliness she has been our yardstick of ACE's development. She brings fresh, age- and development-related tasks each week; tasks that are based on the development of kids without any syndrome or difficulties. And Angharad is where such a 'normal' child would be for her age in almost all the categories, the exception being the physical categories - where her DS has necessarily slowed her development and will catch up with time - rather than the cognitive, social or emotional developmental categories where she holds her own.
An emotional morning. Still, Angharad also had Speech and Language Therapy today at UWIC with Hannah Plumpton and her mature student Cathy. We are concentrating on 'P's and 'S's for the week ahead and, as ever, Angharad was a little star in the session. I love that little girl! The pics were taken from the Portage xmas party 2008 and Santa Claus was Jan so they seem appropriate today of all days!
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