This is an update to my post about speech therapy for my 3 year old. I ended up contacting our local school district to see if I could have him evaluated and made an appointment for him to meet with a teacher who specializes in developmental delays. Today was his appointment.
Parker (my son) had a blast. The evaluation was in a preschool classroom and he just loved it and had a hard time concentrating he was so excited. They did a series of tests like having him stack blocks, identify pictures, sort items, color match, etc. His receptive communication skills are/were pretty darn excellent despite his excitement. He also showed both evaluators that he is a very smart boy…you show him how to do something once and he picks up on it immediately and duplicates. Both evaluators declared that there is nothing wrong with his understanding and aptitude, he is in fact advanced in those areas if anything. His motor skills are right where they should be although they did have a tiny bit of concern that he walks on his tippy toes quite a bit. They felt that would probably correct itself though.
They did however both agree that his verbal communication skills are seriously lacking. He talks up a storm but 90% of what he says is unintelligble. He just can’t seem to form the words and communicate. He is also very selective in what he says. He seems to be happy to say only what he needs to get by and then certain words that are appealing to him like car, dinosaur, butterfly, etc. So, they have recommended that he see a speech pathologist next week and then pending the review set him up for speech classes twice a week for an hour. They also think he should be in a Head Start preschool program but we aren’t even in the ballpark for income requirements so he would be wait listed if we do want to enroll him.
On one hand I hate to use free state services like that when we can afford private school but they don’t offer the speech services he would need. We shall see.
At any rate we go back on Thursday to the see the Speech Pathologist and see what she says. Hubby and I both went to his evaluation today and feel that he will like these sessions and they will be good for him. The teacher we met with was also very understanding about my concerns that he not be “labeled”. Which reminds that in that first post I got a comment that I shouldn’t care if he gets labeled as long as he gets the help the needs. Well, I disagree and the teacher today pointed out why I am right to feel that way.
She explained that there are certain diagnosis terms they have to use to describe the issues facing a child and she personally feels they are completely inappropriate for preschool kids. As an example she mentioned that a preschool child who has never been socialized before entering school for a developmental delay may have trouble getting along with other kids. There is nothing wrong with this. It could be that they need to learn socialization skills or that their personality makes them less likely to integrate with kids they don’t feel comfortable with. The issues could go away as they get older or get more comfortable with the other kids… we are talking preschool here. Yet when they write up their reports they can only use the term “emotional disturbance” to describe this behavior. As the teacher stated that is completely unfair to have that go in their records when they are only 3-4 years old. I think I really like this woman. :) She feels that I don’t even need to worry at this point though because we are looking at a speech delay only as far as we she can tell.
Anyway, that is where we are at. I am glad I decided to take him.
