Goal Time

We are at Nolan's six month review for early intervention. The semi-annual review is fairly informal and just requires an update of goals (no formal testing is conducted). Nolan has met all the goals from his IFSP written at 15 months of age, with the exception of identifying verbs. We've never seen him do this, and if we ask him to point to someone "jumping" or "drinking" he has no clue. Identifying verbs will continue on as a goal.

Since he has met the rest of his goals, we drafted entirely new ones. The new goals are targeting the age of 27 months (the age he'll be at the next review):

• Engage in appropriate conversational turn-taking without additional prompting
• Pronounce the following consonant-vowel combinations 75% of the time: t/d/m/n/p/b
• Nolan will expand his sign language vocabulary
• Identify objects by function
• Answer simple "wh" questions
• Will ask simple questions
• Will auditorilly discriminate sounds in structured activities from a field of six
• Will identify and use age appropriate descriptive concepts (big/little, wet/dry, etc)
• Will identify 15 verbs by pointing to pictures

Nolan seems to be flying through most of his goals, so I'm sure he'll meet these new ones in short order!

Review of Our Goals

I've been reviewing Nolan's goals, which were set six months ago. Our overriding goal is for him to maintain both expressive and receptive language milestones on par with his hearing pears, and I would venture a guess that he is at least at peer level. As he is approaching his annual testing date, I thought I'd look over his goals again. The goals we set last May (for a 15 month old child) were:

• Respond to name on a consistent basis and turn to parent's names on a consistent basis.

He doesn't turn to his name on a consistent basis, but this could be due to his age. He gets engrossed in things that are far more interesting than turning to his name. A hearing test in one week will verify that this is an attention issue vs. hearing issue.

• Respond to basic questions (i.e. "where is the ball?") with a sign or gesture.

Check! He will find anything with a known vocabulary and will point to it or bring it to us.

• Identify at least 30 nouns and 10 verbs by choosing picture.

Hmmm... He'll probably get 30 nouns, but he hasn't figured out the verb thing yet. Maybe we'll work on "jumping" and "sitting" next week!

• Identify 5 body parts on himself or a doll.

He can identify his nose, but that is it at this point in time. If you ask him where his mouth is, he'll point to his nose. If you ask him where is ears are, he'll point to his nose... another thing we're working on.

• Respond to "no."

Check! Though his response is usually to laugh and continue doing what he wants to do! Sigh...

• Engage in social games (i.e. Pat-a-Cake)

Check! He loves "ring around the rosie" and other games we play at home. He doesn't quite get the turn-taking idea of Pat-a-Cake.

• Follow simple routine directions (i.e. put ball in box).

Check! He likes to put things IN other items, so he understands that concept. He may or may not understand "on top" or "beside," but he's a little young for that.

• Use three words in addition to mommy and daddy

Check! Well, sort of. There is no "mommy," but we have daddy, light, doggie, meow, roar, ball, and uh-oh.

• Attempt verbal imitation

Check! He will imitate when he feels like it.

• Imitate bilabial p, b, and m in 2/3 of prompts.

Hmmm... He doesn't do /p/ yet, and /b/ is just emerging. He does say "mamama" in babble but doesn't consistently imitate 2/3 of the time.

• Imitate vowel/consonant combinations with t, p, and n (at, up, and on) in 3/4 of opportunities.

Not so much. He has no /t/ or /p/, so those are missing entirely. He does have /n/, but when he imitates "on" it just sounds like "aw."

• Imitate consonant/vowel combinations (t, d, m, n, p, and b) at 75% of opportunities.

Another one he won't do. He sometimes will imitate "mamama," but none of the others. We have no /t/ or /p/. We are just starting to get a /b/.

We have testing in a week or two and a hearing test next Thursday. Then we'll be ready to set goals for a (gasp) 21 month old!

Review Time

We have Nolan's six month IFSP review in two weeks, and I have to come up with goals. He'll be almost nine months old at the meeting, which means the goals need to be applicable for the ages of 9-15 months. Our ultimate goal is to have him attend our neighborhood mainstream school, so we are including this as a goal.

For language milestones I am thinking of:

Receptive Language:

• Follows a one step command
• Understanding the terms "look," "show me," and "come here."
• Identify one body part

Expressive Language:

• Spoken vocabulary of 5 words
• Uses "Mama" and "Dada" to get our attention
• Signs "more" and "all done"
• Points to objects
• Waves bye-bye

My brain is running on empty and I can't think of very many speech and language goals. We are doing some sign with Nolan, since his hearing brother has severe speech delay. We're hedging our bets and hoping that we don't have the same frustration issues we had with Matthew due to an inability to communicate. I can't really think of signing goals, since I don't know what to expect with development in this area.

Any ideas for goals are appreciated!

We've Got Goals, Baby!

I had my IFSP meeting for Matthew, and we put goals into place for the next six months. His official diagnosis is a severe articulation disorder with a moderate receptive/expressive language delay. His receptive delay is mild, and probably registered poorly because he was not in the mood to cooperate with the examiner. He didn't show an understanding of pronouns or the correct use for objects (he fed the bear with a spoon in a cup- unfortunately I always use a spoon in my coffee mug and he imitated this. Oops!). His expressive was moderate, his pragmatic use of language was severe, and his articulation was severe. That's the bad news.

The good news? He gets speech therapy, twice per week! His goals for the next six months are:

• Increase core vocabulary


• Demonstrate understanding of pronounds and simple descriptive concepts


• Imitate words


• Produce consonant-vowel combinations


• Decrease frustration when not understood


• Increase amount of signs to match receptive language


• Add consonants to vocabulary


• Increase word approximation consistency


• Increase word clarity

The simple idea of my 2+ year old being able to imitate words has me all a-twitter. I know it is a process, but I really can't wait until he calls me "mama." I've been waiting a long time.

IFSP meeting

We had our IFSP meeting for Nolan. It was an interesting meeting because Matthew kept sneaking into the living room to play with the nativity set we have. I wonder what the EI coordinator thought when I said, "stop hiding the baby Jesus!" That kid loves the baby Jesus and carries the little statue around our house. We're often missing the main character in the Christmas story, lol. Anyway, Nolan will get speech therapy twice per week and we have established some goals:

Begin babbling
Turn and respond to voices
Start to recognize and respond to environmental sounds (i.e. doorbell)
Begin to vocalize needs as demonstrated in pitch of cries (i.e. hungry, mad, etc)
Vocalizing more to identify/recognize people/objects (e.g. mamama dadadada)

These are goals for the next six months, so these are things he should be doing by the time he is nine months old. We'll start the therapy sessions in January, because we're off to California and Utah for the latter part of December. Skiing and free babysitting, here we come!