Speech Evaluation

Charlotte had her speech evaluation today. At first they were going to do an entire evaluation, including social and physical, but based on the observation from the in-take meeting, they determined only a speech evaluation was necessary. We think this means that it was not obvious that she was behind in any other area besides speech, so that's a good thing.

Chris took her back for the evaluation while I entertained Cooper. It took about an hour and they tested her cognition, receptive language, and expressive language. For cognition Chris would show her two cards, one of a child playing and one of a child brushing her hair. He would ask Charlotte which one had the child brushing her hair and Charlotte pointed to the correct card. She also had to do a matching game and match like items to like items, again she did well.

For receptive language she was given directions to follow to see if she understood what to do. The woman doing the evaluation asked her to kiss the plastic dog and she gave it a hug. Then when Chris asked her to kiss the dog, she blew it a kiss. She followed other directions well also.

The area that the evaluater was concerned about was her speech. She was not able to mimic many words, and did not talk much during the evaluation. The woman said she should be putting two words together by now. She determined that Charlotte has the expressive language of a 9-12 month old and is recommending speech therapy once a week. The paperwork will be sent back to the Early Start program, we will notify our pediatrician and then we will take it from there. It sounds like therapy will be more to teach Chris and I what to work on with her at home, especially since Chris is a stay at home dad and can spend a lot of time with her.

I know everyone told me not to worry, that she sounds normal, and that she will catch up soon. In this particular instance I'm really glad I listened to my gut. I was concerned since she hadn't seemed to make much progress since 12 months old. I have to say to any parent who has a gut feeling that something might be off with your child to listen to it because you may be able to help your child by doing so.

The toughest part of this evaluation for Chris and I is to not take it personally. Chris especially is bothered since he feels like he is somehow responsible since he is the stay at home parent. He feels like it's his job to make sure they are developing on target for their age. I keep thinking that maybe I'm not spending enough time with her, or maybe because we have two so close in age that we can't give either of them the time they need. We keep reassuring each other that it's nobody's fault and the important thing is that we are doing something to help her. I wonder if other parents feel this way for things like this?