Our evaluation by the school district is coming up in a little over two weeks. Thursday they will send someone to observe her at school. Then two weeks later I bring her in for a morning of testing. I just don't think she'll qualify for further services.
She's doing so well. The occupational therapy has been nothing short of a miracle. She's trying new foods, tolerating stimulating environments, touching a wide variety of things without too much protest, and playing more with others. It is amazing and I am in awe at the transformative powers of occupational therapy. I'm not sure she needs much more OT.
Her speech is still full of errors, but her language is fine. Her teacher is just an amazing teacher and has a lot of experience with little ones and so doesn't have a lot of trouble understanding her at school. Most of what she has to say at school has a lot of context to help out. Her intelligibility is aided by her good coping skills. She will often try another way when her first attempt at communicating is unsuccessful. She also has good inflection, facial expressions and body language which helps boost her intelligibility. All of that is wonderful, but is going to work against her during this assessment. I suspect they will not qualify a child who isn't even three yet based on the presence of speech errors alone.
We'll just go and see what happens. But I'm not getting my hopes up.
Does your school system use the Kaufman test? If so she should definitely qualify. You may also be surprised by her articulation score. Our therapist treats many children with CAS and while she rates my daughter 90 percent intelligible her Goldman score was still 73 a few months ago. If you've seen a developmental pediatrician then a diagnosis will also indicate the need for services. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteI felt the same way when we took our son for testing, but was completely shocked with how his scores came out in all areas. He has not made nearly the progress that you have seen with Ava, but you never know. Our district did state that is is very difficult for three year olds to qualify for articulation only. Good luck!
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