Today's evaluation went MUCH better.
Bear in mind the majority of the results/opinons/beliefs of the psychologists were still not revealed to us, probably because of all the confusion they generated yesterday. We'll have to wait until the 5th for that.
But . . Smiley charmed the heck out of the women, just being as friendly and outgoing as he's ever been - and more than once they commented on how big of a smile he has.
They ran him through a whole battery of tests, many more than yesterday. On everything remotely mechanical or hands on he aced it. Break a toy into its component pieces and put it back together - check. Unscrew a bottle, remove the contents, replace them one by one - check. Stack and build blocks - check. Untie a knotted necklace, remove the beads, and then thread them back on - check (and without even being instructed; that seemed to impress them).
When he finished threading the beads he went up to one of the psychologistsm,put the necklace on her neck and tried to tie it on - priceless.
He also did surprisingly well in identyifing both colors and shapes, given the fact that he refuses to acknowledge those things whenever we've tried to teach him. In fact, we were floored he knew them at all.
He could also ID items and pictures and immediately associated a photo of an object with the real thing, like a door for example.
His attention span was much better, although they too noticed he was hyper-focused at times and distracted at others.
Again, they were loathe to tell us too much, but one of the women said that he was far and away too intelligent and advanced for her (very extremely disabled) program and that she would be recommending he be rejected.
That's great news.
The bad news is much shorter in length because we won't know much until the 5th.
Smiley's vocab is still limited to 11 words, and most of them chopped up vowel sounds rather than full English words.[dada, 'ocks (socks), kay (ok), 'all (ball), 'ore (more), mom/'om, bu-eyyye (bye), bu-oke (broke), and three more that slip my mind.)
He uses no two-word combinations, does not respond to or try to engage in singing, and showed no sign of developing language.
Yet again, more news to follow on the 5th, but I think the general consensus is that it's it's like a whole chunk of his ability to communicate verbally just fails to fire up, or isn't there at all.
From what they said it seems certain he will have intensive treatment of some type in the summer and will quite probably be in a special-ed program come the fall. They were quick to point out that it's not as bad as the stigma implies and that it isn't/wouldn't be a lifelong label, but something to be reviewed again every three years.
So, wait and see. More news to follow on the 5th.
6 comments:
I hope you continue to get encouraging news!
Beth
Good to hear the good news....and I know you will get good news on the 5th
Jeanne
I used to babysit for a friend's little boy. The little guy was bright and happy.... and never spoke. He would make grunty noises and point, but words... not so much. His parents became concerned as he got older and still wasn't talking. This was like 30 years ago, but I remember them talking about taking him to a specialist to be checked for a learning disorder, I don't know if he ever went. In everything except talking he seemed to be right about where he should be in learning things like walking/building with blocks/etc.
The funny thing is that when they sent him to Pre-school he just up and started jabbering away. Using words for numbers and shapes and colors that we had all said to him, but he had never repeated back. Seems that he didn't feel any need to talk since a grunt and a point got one of us to get him whatever he needed. <LOL> Considering that Smiley knew colors and shapes makes me think he may be a little like the little guy I knew. I'm sure he has some speech problems because of the hearing/ear thing, but he may surprise you when he gets out into the world with what he -does- know!!
I'm glad that today's session went so well!
Oh good. I can only imagine how frustrated you guys must feel. I am no expert, but I'll bet Smiley outgrows much of what is a concern right now. He may need some speech therapy...but he''ll pop it into gear all the sudden. ;) C.
I tend to think that's good news. You were aware of the speech/hearing problems before..and know that's an area he's going to need help with.
I think I may have mentioned it to you before but just in case I didn't. Have y'all tried to do sign language with him? Eli is only 14 months and he's signing surprisingly well. He can understand us too, if we don't know what he wants we ask him and he signs yes or no even though he can't say them. He even puts words together...lol, like "make" and "poop" ....or "more" and "juice" ...or "want" and "bath".
You can look american sign language up online and pick out a few signs to try to teach him. I think he probably has the understanding of it but not the language tools to communicate it. But I think that he will progress surprisingly well once he gets rolling with talking. And do keep in mind that boys tend to progress slower with language than girls do. We come out of the womb talking uncontrollably and wanting to share our feelings about the experience ;)~
take care~
~Bernadette
Not sure how old Smiley is, but I'll tell you about my oldest son. He didn't start saying anything until he was 2, then only a few words we couldn't understand. He pointed and grunted at everything. At 3 he added a few new words but not many, sometimes put 2 words together, but really couldn't understand him still. Just before he turned 4 we put him in speech twice a week and that helped, they did a lot of mouth exercises and forming words. The biggest thing was that I wasn't letting him speak, I wasn't making him speak, just simply doing everything for him. He also had multiple health problems, and had tubes in his ears around 1 and a half. He was toilet trained by 3 and a half. It only took one day, when he was ready he was ready. Now he's a wonderful, smart middle schooler.
Hope that things go positive for your son, sounds like the outlook is very good so far.
Julie
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