Lauren and her family came to Growing Together Preschool beleaguered by difficulties. Lauren had grown up with some unique speech challenges: though she could inflect and speak with meaning, her phrases came out largely as babbling, with an occasional word anchoring her requests and statements to an idea. While her family could understand Lauren’s speech, her teachers could not. Lauren’s family struggled with her caregivers, who would not put forth the effort to meet Lauren’s needs, convinced that she had severe speech delays and could not be helped.
Around this same time, her mother had struggled through radiation treatments for cancer, making these struggles all the more difficult to overcome. Lauren’s family moved from one school after another denied Lauren the care she needed and disrespected her family’s expert knowledge of their child. As soon as Lauren would make progress, circumstances would change and she would regress. Her family faced resistance from the very people who were supposed to help their child.
At Growing Together Preschool, they found a place that met the needs of their daughter while also considering the emotional and social health of her loved ones. After leaving the school, Lauren excelled in the public school system. She sang in the school choir, performed in theatrical productions, ran track and played football. All of this, thanks in part to the cooperation between parent, teacher, and therapist that Growing Together fosters. Growing Together Preschool hopes that with your support, we can continue to provide a safe space for all families who may walk through our doors.