Of course, yesterday was the day that he had school in the morning, was too tired to eat lunch before nap, and then took a record 3 hour nap that I had to wake him up from in order to do the eval. So he was not in the most cooperative of moods. Regardless, he ended up doing pretty much what he usually does, aside from refusing to identify 5 body parts (he got to 4, but then absolutely would not touch his nose or his belly. I KNOW he can do that!! Erk. Frustrating!).
So, being that I agree with what he was doing was pretty typical for him, it is all the more difficult to hear his "approximate age" in regards to his speech capablity, which was between 13-15mos.
I'm not living in a bubble. I know that he has delays, and I know that Speech and OT are his weaknesses. It's just always hard when it is concrete. And I think I was fine until she said that he was borderline "Severe Delay." Ugh. Severe? Really? That word is just so...harsh.
On the other hand, she scored him separately with the same battery, but taking into account his sign...and with that he scored 18-22 mos! Of course, that score will never be in the official paperwork, or up for consideration when we go in for the Big Preschool Meeting. But it is comforting to know that it's not that he can't communicate...it's just that he primarily uses sign.
I see growth with his verbal language, so I know it's coming. He is starting to imitate beginning sounds, and even says "ba ba" for bubble and "puh-puh" for pretzel. This is huge for him...so I'm excited to watch him develop in this area. So, I guess the eval wasn't all a huge "this is what Chase is not doing" but just had a pang of "just in case you forgot-- here is your friendly Down syndrome reminder"...
Eh.
2 comments:
it's never fun, is it?
I do think it's interesting how the sign doesn't "count". Why not? I mean, if he were totally nonverbal, they'd be trying to get him to sign.
(I've had this conversation with our ST and pediatrician, too, so I'm just musing.)
Anyway. my word verify for this comment is "preggent". That's like what you are, right? preggent?
I feel for you on those evals. Kayla's speech eval said "3.0 deviations below the mean indicating a severe speech and language delay", and Kayla's still in the 12 - 18 month range and she just turned five. But we all know that our kids are more than just numbers!
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