It’s time for another progress report evaluation from Noah’s speech therapist, so she worked on assessments with him on Wednesday.
She knows him well enough that when he didn’t do his best, she prompted him until he did; so I was happy the results were reasonably accurate. Well, except for the part that no matter how many times she asked the questions, he refused to identify colors, which he SO knows how to do.
The little stinker.
At first I was encouraged – she said he was doing skills on par with a typical 4 to 4-1/2-year-old, according to the assessment. But when she started figuring his scores, due to the skills gaps in certain areas, he came out at 2 years 9 months or so.
That would be great except that he is 6.
And we’ve been investing so heavily in language-rich activities, speech therapy, mommy speech therapy time.
Talk about taking the wind right out of my sails!
But I came home and dug up the first SLP evaluation Noah had at private practice. First I was shocked to see it was only a year and a half ago – it seems like we’ve been doing speech therapy for at least 2-3 years.
Next I saw that 18 months ago his scores were not even measurable; therefore the only information the therapist could gather was on the age equivalent skills Noah was able to accomplish. So at age 4-1/2 he was functioning at a 1 to 1-11/12-year-old level in terms of speech and language.
And now at just barely 6, he is functioning at a 4 to 4-1/2-year level. So that’s about 3 years worth of development in a little over 18 months.
On top of that, it took him 4-1/2 years to reach the 1-2-year level, and then an additional 18 months to gain 3 more years – he is picking up the pace at an incredible speed, don’t you think?
It’s amazing how downhearted I was leaving the speech therapist’s office thinking about that 2-years 9 months score. But looking back over his prior assessments completely changed my perspective. I don’t have the formal report yet, but I’ll share it when I do.
Tonight I’ll just be thanking God for Noah’s wonderful speech therapist – We love you, Miss Lindsey – the friends who have helped along the way – We love you Michelle and Kristen, and a husband and lifestyle that allow me to spend pretty much day and night with my courageous little man – Thank you, Andrew – seizing opportunity after opportunity to discover the Words of His Heart.
Related articles
- Speech Therapy x 2 (bitofmomsense.com)
- Down Syndrome and Apraxia – Looking for A Diagnosis (wordsofhisheart.wordpress.com)
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