Assessment update
The Little Empress, avoiding the camera
Yesterday, The Hubs ™ and I attended The Little Empress’ assessment meeting to review how she’s progressed since we set some specific goals for her in June. Overall, her progress has been steady and consistent. Her gross motor and fine motor skills test at nearly 36 months old (!!); her cognitive and self-help abilities test at her current age level; but her social and expressive speech continue to be issues. At this point, she has more than a 50% delay in her expressive speech, which I wasn’t surprised about. What I was surprised about is that she is still testing at approximately a 50% delay socially. It is really sort of a head scratcher — she’s very friendly, she acknowledges that are kids around and she has some special friends that she shows appropriate affection with but she still doesn’t initiate play. New goals were set and now TLE has a bunch of new stuff to work on.We also confirmed that, yes, TLE will be at the center-based program until she ages out next March.
During the meeting, I was reminded about how absolutely lucky we’ve been with the county. When I joined a local special needs list, there was a lot of talk about how to advocate for your child and to push back when county denies services. Budgets are strained and they tend to try to cut corners were they can. We have a passionate case worker who advocates hard for her cases. She confessed to me that, if we had lived eleswhere chances are that TLE would have only gotten limited speech therapy which wouldn’t have helped her much at all. TLE’s speech therapist asked about the possibility of the county paying for more intensive speech therapy with TLE, considering her delays. I had already checked with our health insurance and they will not cover speech therapy that is not attributable to medical condition.
On the way home, The Hubs ™ and I discussed more things I can do at home with TLE to try to help her. That expressive speech component is important. I try my best not to compare TLE to other kids, reminding myself that she’ll gain speech at her own pace and that above all else, it is most important that she is healthy and happy. But it is still heartbreaking to realize that TLE isn’t like other kids; speech will be difficult for her for some time. While I know she’ll catch up eventually, I don’t want this to affect her self-esteem in the long run. And I know that the best way to do that is to continue to do what we’ve been doing: not comparing her to others, helping her when/where we can, using positive reinforcement and just loving and supporting her, no matter what.
Her therapists and teachers also brought up two more issues that we’re probably going to be dealing with for awhile. The first is TLE’s willful stubbornness. She simply refused to comply with many of the tests. The OT and her assistant had to jump through a lot of hoops to get her to do the gross motor tests. The program director, whom TLE loves, could not get her to comply with a simple game of peekaboo. She knew she could do it but TLE simply crossed her arms and shut her out. STUBBORN!! It is almost cute now but man oh man, I see a bumpy road ahead with her. TLE is very much about doing things her way. If it wasn’t her idea, it is hard to get her to go along with it. (I’d love to blame The Hubs ™ for this personality trait but sadly, I think she gets it from both of us. Add on top she’s an Aries cusp and we’ve got our hands full!!)
Another thing that the brought up was her attention span. Of course, toddlers don’t have much of an attention span to begin with but TLE’s lack of attention span also made it difficult for them to complete tests in a timely manner. Very easily distracted, she’d flit from activity to activity. And when she was done, she was done.
Oi. We’ve got our work cut out for us.
Read MoreProgress Report: 1+ month
When I picked up The Little Empress from school on last Friday, her teacher was thrilled to report that she was a very good talker that day. She’s signing a lot more at school and verbalized “peas?” (please) and “hep” (help) when she needed help doing something. She’s doing a lot of mimicking, repeating sounds that other people are saying as well as mimicking animal sounds like a horse’s neigh.
This is so big. For the past few weeks, there hasn’t been too much that has changed aside from more babble sounds but now that she’s starting to add words to her vocabulary, I am getting so excited! She’s responding so well to her school and she loves her classmates and teachers. I’ve noticed now that she’s trying to speak more at home too which is great. She may come to us babbling but if we remind her, “Use your words, say ‘please’” rather than letting us tug on her, she’ll usually oblige with the cutest “pease?” you could ever imagine. She now regularly says “up” in addition to her sign for it (standing with her arms above her head) which we have been trying to encourage for close to a year now.
While she’s still pretty hyperactive, she’s not so quick with the tantrums. She will try to use her words more often than not though she may not always be able to get her point across. I’ve noticed that she’s starting to sing as well as dance. She doesn’t really have actual words to her singing, of course, but she does babble in melody and has an amazing sense of rhythm. I’m so excited to see all these developmental improvements! All right!!
Read MoreBetter late than never
While I’ve alluded to the fact that The Little Empress is turning out to be slow to speak, I have been a bit hesitant to talk about it openly. The reasons for this are varied but a lot of it comes down to guilt and feeling like I have somehow failed her as a mother. But I realize that hiding and avoiding a situation only tends to aggravate worry than alleviate it. Rather than worry in private, I figure that it is time to start talking about it and document what steps we will be taking to help TLE overcome it.
The Little Empress had begun to babble pretty early on in infancy and I was always sure that her first word was just around the corner. By 12 months she still had not uttered her first word but I was not worried — surely it was coming soon. But when her 18 month birthday slipped by without “Mama” or “Dada”, I began to get concerned. At her well child check at 18 months, our family doctor wasn’t particularly worried as TLE was obviously alert, curious and capable of understanding what was going on around her.
By about 22 months old, TLE’s had developed a small vocabulary, main filled with simple, two syllable words and a few garbled phrases. Though I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t gauge TLE’s development by comparing her to other children her age, I double checked her development against widely accepted milestones for her age. By my unprofessional estimates, her vocabulary was behind though her comprehension was about where it should be. I asked around online, seeking advice from other Moms. Several Moms advised me to look into early intervention programs through the county. After doing some research online, I found the early intervention specialists in our area.
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Text and photographs copyrighted by Michelle N unless otherwise noted.