Manda Girl » Blog Archive » A whopping 2 percent

I have finally reached the point where I thought Isaac’s nasally unintelligible language required some looking into.Â My neighbors had told be about the early intervention program in our school district. They send someone out to the house for a free developmental evaluation of the child. If the child scores below 7% for their age range in one particular area, they’ll qualify for treatment.

A big part of me was just curious. Is he really that delayed? I know that boys in general can be late talkers but I was more and more noticing how delayed Isaac actually appeared then his fellow 2 and halfers. He actually talks A LOT.Â You just can’t understand him. He’ll tell me huge stories about lawn mowers and motorcycles but out of the ten words he says I can only catch one or two words… and I’m his mother.

So this cute lady came over to test Isaac. I was nervous about Isaac’s attention span. How on earth was she going to test this boy who only wanted to run circles around the couch making motorcycle noises? I expressed my concern and she assured me that she had seen it all… and I guess she had because she was amazing. She got Isaac to do things that I never thought would be possible. It was fun to watch her work so fast to keep him entertained.

When I saw how well he was doing with her I started to doubt myself… then I saw his results and I just had to laugh. His results just screamed “Isaac” at me. Note that the scores are not out of 100%, they are percentages of where he falls among his fellow 30 month year olds. 16-84% is normal range. 50% being average.

Gross Motor 98%
Fine Motor 50%
Cognitive 59%
Receptive language 99%
Expressive language 2%
Self help 79%
Social emotional 50%

He is obviously a very physical boy (gross motor.) He also understands everything I say to him (receptive language) but expressive language is what he uses and can say. It’s obvious, isn’t it.

So he qualified. After a hearing test we’ll have a speech pathologist come to the house and begin working with him. This service was free last year but because of lack of funding there is a small fee. This makes it a little more challenging for our family because of our nervous feelings for the state of the economy.

I hope he catches on quickly because the less amount of service the better. Perhaps he just needs to realize that he can make certain noises with the front of his mouth and off he’ll go chattering away. He may resist though and stick to his old ways of communication. Lets hope for the best.

That’s great that you had him evaluated! I’m sure he’ll make quick progress. He’s obviously a smart (and active:) little boy). They say the earlier the intervention, the better. Hopefully by kindergarten no one will ever know he had a delay in expressive language. Mason took speech with a little boy (years ago) who is now in Kailey’s 1st grade class. He graduated from needing services while he and Mason were together probably about 4 years ago. When I mentioned that he used to take speech with Mason, Kailey totally didn’t believe me because he speaks so clearly now.

You’ve got to feel better knowing that really everything is fine with your cute boy. He just needs a little encouragement. Heck, if I could get by with my own language, why not? Good luck with it all!

My Isaac was a late talker, too! We were doing the speech therapy thing, and I finally just took a guess that he wasn’t talking because I always knew what he wanted.

So the next time he pointed to the fridge – and I KNEW he wanted yogurt – I guessed everything in that fridge except the yogurt. Not too many 2.5 yr olds really want to eat sardines. LOL

I’m still not certain what did the trick for sure, but he was only in therapy for 5-6 weeks.

Maybe try a little deliberate misunderstanding. LOL

Good for you-the more help the better. It is amazing to watch a specialist in action. I happen to be a graduate from a speech pathologist in my elementary school days. I was always so thankful for her-can’t remember her name, but can still see her clearly in my mind. I had a friend that dropped out and she still had the speech problem in middle school.

My son had a speech problem when he was Issac’s age. We also went thru the early intervention program. Now at age 11 he you would never know he had a problem! He is in the gifted classes at school and reads at a 12th grade level and talks just fine!!

Try not to worry…and kudos to you for having him tested early.

Happy fpr you and your son… i am sure he will progress and you will understand all he talks!!.. good luck!!

My older daughter was in EI speech therapy for 2.5 years… since they don’t come in the summer time, or on holidays, etc… it takes longer than you might think. What really helped us was the 4 hours of training I had to attend first – because I could work with her all the time, not just during the 30 minute EI visit. I also made sure her daycare teachers knew what sounds we were working on at any given point in time. I’ve been able to help my younger daughter “get it” without EI. Good luck – and kudos to you for having Issac evaluated – it will make SUCH a difference in his frustration level – and YOURS!!

I have a friend who’s little boy had delayed speech due to enlarged tonsils. Might be something to check out?

That is almost dead on for my son’s first speech evaluation at just slightly older than Isaac. We used to say he was all skill and no sense.

I was utterly astounded and how quickly his expressive language took off once he started speech- we went from screaming to paragraphs overnight. It was literally non-communication to The Thing That Wouldn’t Shut Up – and it caught us way, way off guard lol!

Good luck, I bet you are relieved to get that evaluation done. I hope the speech therapy is successful!!!

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