No, I'm not talking about me! I'm talking about my little number 5 angel girl who is 25 months old and today had three visitors come and evaluate her for services. My little ME has been developing wonderfully in all areas starting from birth but I noticed about 15 months that her vocabulary was definitely not expanding like the others. And I know, number 5 will have things said and done for her, but I have an early childhood background and I have been around children long enough (with 4 previous at home work studies, ha) to be able to detect when in doubt-get help. So I casually asked our pediatrician in AR what he thought and he of course said, wait until 18 months... wait wait wait... people have entirely too much patience it seems...so we waited. We moved during the transition of her being 18 months so she was actually 19 months when we got into our new pediatrician up here in WNY. Again, my doctor said to wait until around 20 months but if I still didn't notice any increase in vocabulary to call the Erie County prevention services. Well, 20 months came and went and I thought I would just wait until school got back in and she was two and perhaps could have a few more words added to her already "huge" collection of 4 words. Momma, Daddy, wader (water) and G-g.
At 24 months we had perhaps improved to 10 words so when I called the prevention services a wonderfully nice lady came to my house and we filled out mounds and mounds of red tape, oops, I mean paperwork, and I jumped through a hoop and stood on my head and finally set up an evaluation date. That was today!
These awesome ladies came to my house with all kinds of fun toys and books and really cool books that have pictures of different things to point at and they of course were charmed by sweet Mary. They thought she was the sweetest little thing and apparently (I'll take no credit) were very impressed with her abilities...(well, she is my daughter...)
But her speech, vocabulary, articulation, inability to say syllables in the middle of words (mo ee is monkey), is a definite red flag and according to their scale of ability, she failed miserably... ok, didn't fail, but she only made it to 12-15 months in that area. All her other ares of development she was 27 months and above and one was even 33 months and up. Go girl!
So this means that in about three weeks, once the red tape has been dotted and crossed and I receive the IFSP, we'll start speech at our house once a week for 3 months and then re-evaluate to see if there is improvement and if not, change the number of sessions, or change the therapy work...
I see a silver lining in all of this-we are very blessed to have these services. I remember how hard it was to get JT into speech in Arkansas. I felt like it was me against the world-trying to convince people he had a problem and then how fast it was corrected once he started speech. I am blessed to be where I am right now and can sooooo see God at work in everything...Wow. Don't ever worry about making wrong decisions if you really pray and discern. God really does show His hand. If you pray, and I mean pray with earnest and sincerity, and openness, He will lead you. He does know best...He is our Father!
Have a blessed Thursday!
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