Reality Check

When we started all of this Ava had too little speech to give her any kind of formal articulation assessment. You can't ask an essentially nonverbal child to label pictures in a book so that you can score how well they did making sounds. Now that Ava has so many words her early intervention therapist and I decided to give her an articulation test to see where she is.

The Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation 2 is very simple in concept. It is a book of pictures. Your child labels the pictures and the Speech-Language Pathologist transcribes how your child pronounces each word exactly as your child says it. The test is designed so that after all of the pictures have been pronounced your child has attempted to pronounce every consonant sound (and some blends) in every position (beginning, middle, end) of words in which they appear in the English language.

We gave the test to Ava. It took us two sessions. There are a lot of words on the test and it is hard to get a two year old to focus. She did better than I expected. She got sounds on the test that she doesn't usually get in regular conversation. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

Then I scored the test. She got a standard score of 72. That's equivalent to the 7th percentile. That means that 93% of children her age perform better than her on this test. Wow! Seeing that number was a huge reality check for me.

I've been so focused on all the improvements. She's made amazing progress since we started getting her help. She had no words. Now she had more than I can count. She went from one-word utterances to two and three-word phrases. Now we are frequently hearing four and five-word sentences. She was a pretty silent toddler who wasn't even trying to talk any more - a toddler who had to resort to gestures and pulling me around to ask for what she wanted. Now she talks all the time. She communicates with her parents, grandparents, brother, teachers, and friends. She even talks to herself. She tries to sing and hum. I was proud. I was excited.

Now, with this new number (7th percentile!) I am sad and discouraged again. I know that this new information takes nothing away from all of her accomplishments. I do know that. I know that this new information is a valuable reality check. It gives me information I can use to go forward and plan our next steps. As a speech-pathologist the test results are interesting, valuable, and even a little exciting. As Ava's Mama, those test results make me sad. They are a reminder of her struggle and the long road that is still ahead of us. Reality really stinks sometimes.

How did he do it?

First there was the redecoration of the room. Then there was the disassembly of the dollhouse. Then, following today's adventures in not-napping, we discover this:

Notice the new gold knob on the lower drawer. So, where exactly did he acquire the new knob?

And where did he put the old knob?

But here's the thing. How did he do it this time? There was no screwdriver in the room!

We obviously need to get this boy some kind of outlet! We're thinking erector set maybe?

The Weekly Review: Week Ten

Funny Blog Post I completely agree with:

Kristen at Motherhood Uncensored wrote a hilarious post about her philosophy of motherhood. Check it out first for the humor and second for the nuggets of wisdom hidden within.

Blog Post that made me want to give the author a big hug

Mona at kirida dot com recently wrote a post about her pediatrician recommending that she have her son evaluated for autism. It was a touching post. I thought she did an amazing job of expressing the awfulness of having to wait to be evaluated for a diagnosis.

In August 2010, Mona wrote a post about her son's speech and her feelings of protectiveness that really resonated with me. I think I found it so meaningful because I was already ignoring so many red flags about Ava. This post perfectly expresses so many of my own feelings about Ava. Then, and now, it helps me feel less alone.

Website Resource of the Week:

Therapy Fun Zone is a website full of great OT and PT activities. Even if your child doesn't need PT or OT help, the activities are still a lot of fun. I'm going to start with this one as soon as I get to the store for gumdrops and toothpicks. Fair warning though: the website is incredibly slow and each page takes several seconds to load. I feel like I'm on a modem. Second, the pages are poorly designed and an email signup form shows up at the top of each page so you have to scroll down to see the actual article. The activity ideas (complete with pictures) are worth putting up with the technical issues though.

Sibling Moment of the Week:

The children have large stuffed armchairs. Their game of the week (intended to give me a heart attack) is to tip an armchair on its side, climb on top together, and then slowly shift their balance so the whole thing tips over tumbling them onto the floor in a heap. Laughter from the two of them fills the air and they work together to tip the armchair back over again so they can start over.

Quote of the Week from Michael:

Michael has coined the phrase, "Visitor Day" for the day of the week that we usually have friends come over to play. He'll say, "Is tomorrow visitor day Mama?"

Ava's Quote of the Week:

"Come sit with me, Mama!"

Project of the Week:

I was happy to get my three part series on Apraxia Therapy Principles finished and posted.