Matthew had his Early Intervention evaluation for speech and language. I was really worried that he would not qualify due to his receptive language skills, even though he can't talk. The speech language pathologist arrived and Matthew was in a quite "busy" mode, not really answering the questions for receptive language. This really worked in our favor, as it kept his receptive language at a 22 month level (he's almost 26 months old). That's in the normal range, but didn't kick his total language score out of the ballpark. His expressive, with 0% intelligibility to a stranger and only 6 word-like phrases (apparently "ewwww" and "oh" don't qualify as true words), registered at a 12 month level. This kicks him into the severe range for speech. With a moderate language delay and a severe expressive delay, he should qualify. The lack of progress with his receptive does keep me cautious about hearing loss with him, though I know we had him down to 20dB in a soundfield.
At least we can start getting help for him. It's really depressing when I drop him off at the 2 year old room at MOPS and all the other 2 year olds say things like, "look! Radio's broken!" and Matthew only says something that sounds like, "favahfafa!"
2 comments:
I wish we were neighbors. I can so relate to this. Ethan is also severely delayed expressively. Granted, he missed one year of language due to his deafness, but everyone on his team is saying he has apraxia.
I've been on a very active yahoo group that is comprised mostly of mothers of apraxic children and it has been EXTREMELY informative. And cerebral. These folks are all using biomedical intervention (DAN! docs and supplements) and seeing dramatic improvements. Apparently the combination of Vitamin E and fish oil for daily supplementation has literally cured some of the kids diagnosed apraxic.
Not to say your little cutie is apraxic, but I wouldn't be surprised if that term comes up now that he has been accepted in EI.
Congrats on getting him into EI!
I'll have to find that apraxia group. We don't have an official diagnosis yet, but since my husband was apraxic, it wouldn't be a big shocker to find out that Matthew had the same thing. I may have to try the Vitamin E and Fish Oil thing. I am glad that he will get help, because the kid really can't say anything the rest of us can understand! Sign language helps him communicate, but without sign, he's lost.
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