Weekly Wrap-Up

The highlight of this week was Rose’s annual Early Intervention Evaluation. We had Rose’s first evaluation at 10 months because I was concerned with her lack of consistent babbling and no consonant-vowel sounds. I knew she would qualify for services and lucky her, her mom knows ALL about the program. Rose started with every other week speech therapy and around 6 months in we increased it to weekly as we were able to start to get more out of her. We have tried LOTS of strategies to increase her language. Around November something clicked and she popped out with her first consistent, spontaneous, repetitive consonant-vowel word ‘go’! I think that is so fitting for out active little girl J Since then she has added new sounds, words, and we have supplemented with signs.

Wednesday my co-workers came out to our home to complete the evaluation. Honestly, I knew exactly what was going to happen (I go to evaluations for kiddos every week!) but, I was a little nervous. We use a standardized test to compare kiddos with a group of peers their same age in months. If a child shows a 25% or greater delay or has a qualifying diagnosis (Club Foot, Torticollis, Down Syndrome) they are eligible to receive services. Rose has no diagnoses, so we are just looking for that 25% delay. Rose did FANTASTIC! The test is used to show if there is a delay so once a child reaches their age in months, there really isn't a reason to go any farther. Rose was 22 months last Sunday, so that is the age they tested her at. She rated at 31 months in fine motor and probably could have gone a bit father! She came out at or above age level in each area EXCEPT for language. There are two parts of the language area: receptive (what is understood) and expressive (what is said). In the receptive area she rated at 29 months (woohoo) and in the expressive she improved from last year and was at 14 months (so at least is wasn't 50% delay this time). 

We were very happy with the evaluation and plan for continued services… yes, that may seem like a bit backward, being happy that Rose does have a delay, BUT we are happy that we are being active in working on a plan to increase Rose’s expressive language and SO happy with all the progress she has made during this past year. 

But numbers are just numbers and don't describe how awesome Rose really is to us. So to close this entry out here are 4 things we think are way wonderful about our little girl:

1. Rose has amazing fine motor skills as seen with this mature grasp of her marker. 

2. Rose is super social and loving (this one is my favorite!)

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3. Rose is always amazing us with the new things she is learning (here she was finding letters with Elmo)

4. Rose is very creative and enjoys playing with toys that allow her to pretend