I've known for a bit that Rowan wasn't quite on track with his speech. He has a pretty good vocabulary but doesn't really know how to apply it. He goes to preschool 3 days a week, and was evaluated by a speech therapist about a month ago. He passed hearing but they felt that he needed further screening. After contacting the school district, we set up an appointment for a screening. Today was that day. It took about an hour and a half, and we met with a Speech Pathologist, Early Special Education Teacher and a Psychologist. He was actually pretty cooperative for most of the testing which I was glad about. They had me fill out a bunch of papers, one for Asperger's. He really doesn't exhibit the signs for that, and the survey I took showed that, but he is delayed in other areas. They rank children on a scale much like they do a growth chart. So like if your child is 50% for weight, that means they weigh as much or more than 50% of other kids their age.
In cognitive development, Rowan ranks in the 3rd percentile, meaning he doesn't know how to use his words appropriately. He also ranked in the 10th % for receptive and expressive language, and 4th % for Social/Emotional. In order to be referred for a category, they need to be at or under the 7th percent. I guess they felt like he needs help in receptive and expressive so they are referring him for that as well. He ranked in the 11th % for adaptive behavior/ self-help skills and 80th % for physicial/motor development. So he's actually ahead on physical and motor, but is lacking everywhere else. We are getting referred to a special preschool through the district and we will get a meeting set up in the next couple of weeks to see if he will be am or pm and how many days a week he qualifies for.
This has honestly been a really hard thing for me as a mom. It's hard not to compare your kids to other kids their age and see what they are doing. I know people are proud of their kids, but it almost hurts when I see what another kid is doing or I see a Facebook update about how amazing and smart their kid is. I know I shouldn't feel this way, but I've shed some tears over it.
At this point, I am so glad that we are getting some help for Rowan. He is the most amazing and wonderful little boy and I want to give him every advantage this world has to offer.
5 comments:
Cheer up, he will make lots of progress I'm sure. That's great that there are programs for him!
Just read this and found it sweet how caring you are to your boys :) People like you make the world go 'round
You're such a good mom Tiffany! I'm sorry that Rowan is struggling with his speech. I'm sure that is so hard for him to not be able to communicate things clearly and for you to not be able to understand! I hope that you guys can find something/someone to help him work through it. Good luck!!
It will all work out. Trust me on this one. ;-) It is hard/frustrating, a myriad of things, but when you get him help this early on, it makes a huge difference in the long run. Get as educated as you can on anything he is diagnosed with. Always listen to your intuition, you know your child best. The fact that you are going to bat for him and not sticking your head in the sand, says a lot.
I remember when Beau had to have extra help with reading. It was hard on me too, the mother pride thing at work. But now that I work with resource students each day, I wish that Beau would of qualified for even more help and maybe he would like to read more than he does. Be glad that Rowan qualifies and doesn't barely not qualify.
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