Speech Evaluation

At Nate's 3 year check-up in November, the doctor recommended speech therapy.  After the referral process and finding out the cost of speech therapy ($75/session), we decided to go with special services through the school system. I don't know why I didn't think of this first, having been taught so much about special education during college, but I guess when it's your own kids, you forget the "professional" stuff.  So that's why now, in February, we are finally getting to the evaluation and results.

The speech therapist met with him here at home a couple weeks ago.  It took him a little bit to warm up, but she is very good at what she does and brought her bag of goodies to help open him up.  She had different books and toys to use as tools for the evaluation.  At the end she felt that he was doing well and wouldn't need services at this time.

We met this afternoon to go over the formal results of the evaluation.  I was a little disheartened when I saw how low the scores were, but she assured me that he was doing fine and she also says that a lot of times the scores can be lower because it's the first visit and the child doesn't know her.  She went over everything thoroughly and I probably asked her too many times if she really thought he was okay.  She said that sometimes it's a gut thing and that the scores don't represent what she feels is the child's level.  She really thinks that he is fine and that he will come around.  She is going to check with us again in May to see how he's doing. 

She did make me feel better, and I'm trying not to focus on the scores, but looking at what he can do in each level he is behind his age, just slightly, but still behind. I expressed my concerns about his readiness for school and she doesn't see any reason why he won't be.  I feel better that she is going to keep checking in to make sure he is hitting those benchmarks.  I do think that he has made so much improvement in just the last few months since his doctor appointment and so hopefully he will continue to do so.