Samantha's Evaluation

Today I took Samantha in for her speech evaluation.  Boulder County has an incredible program, Child Find, that is set up to identify children who are having difficulty in their development in certain areas and provide services to them when it is appropriate.  It is all free of cost.

We had an at home visit yesterday where we talked about some of our concerns.  Then, today Samantha and I went to their facilities that had an open room with lots of different toys to play with.  Then the evaluators/speech and child development experts sat behind a mirrored wall.  This way, Samantha could play at ease with me and they could observe unbeknown to her.

Later, they came out to discuss their findings with me.  They explained that Samantha was very advanced in her social, emotional and cognitive play.  She fed and rocked the baby doll, she put together puzzles, she followed two step directions and shook her head yes and no in response to requests I made.  She was also exceptional with her fine and gross motor skills, stacking blocks, manipulating toys, throwing the ball, etc.

However, they had concerns (like I have had) about her expressive language. While she does well with receptive language like pointing to pictures on request, following directions and pointing to body parts, she 
had difficulty making the sounds for the words she tried to use.  Most of the words she attempted to say were more like word approximations.  They do believe she has a significant delay in expressive speech and language and have recommended that we do speech therapy for her once a week.

I will write another post sometime soon about the range of emotions I am feeling with this.  The one very reassuring thing they covered with me is what a positive tool sign language is for her.  A LOT of people have blamed her speech delay on the signing she has learned and I have been feeling very guilty about it.  They explained that her speech delay has nothing to do with her use of signs.  Actually, all three of them said that was ridiculous.  She has difficulty making the noises she wants to make and being understood, the sign language has given her the only means she has to to communicate her needs.  They told me to continue to encourage the sign language.  Once she learns to say and be understood with words she will drop the signs.  They said again and again what a blessing it is that she knows so many signs.