Speech Therapy Update

It took nearly two months of waiting, but Isaac was seen by the play based assessment team for the school district on Tuesday.  The assessment room was filled with all sorts of toys.  There was a toy kitchen, a trampoline, a slide, a lego table, trucks, puzzles large and small, stuffed animals, paper, crayons, markers, games, and tons of different kinds of blocks.  They basically turned Isaac loose and watched him play and interact with them.  Naturally Isaac attempted to try it all.

After an hour of play, they concluded that he had great fine and gross motor skills.  They were amazed that he could handle scissors so well at three years old and that he was very coordinated in his leaps onto and off of the trampoline.  He also showed an affinity for puzzles and problem solving. [As his parents, we are very aware of his problem solving skills.  He's been know to stack odds and ends on top of each other in order to climb up to reach the forbidden.  The top of the refrigerator is no longer safe, nor the highest shelves.  I recently purchased a safe for Matthew so he can keep his prized possessions locked up from the dynamite destruct-o.  Also he uses tools to open or unlatch objects.  For instance, he takes the broom handle and slides the chain lock off at the top of the door.  As far as puzzles, he can put about half of the United States puzzle map together just by matching pieces.]  He does engage in imaginative play, and sorts things by color, type, and shape.  However, he doesn't know the names of all the colors or shapes. 

The bad news is that he is indeed severely speech delayed [which we knew], and he is behind socially [yep].  It is hard to determine how much the social delay is caused by his inability to communicate or if there are other factors at work.  He is rigid in his play and does not like it when others try to change the play scenario.  He has his own ideas about how things should be and protests when other people do things differently.  This makes it hard for him to interact with other children.  They were also concerned by his lack of attention span.  Some toys engaged his attention for a while but others only held his interest for a few seconds.  He flitted from one activity to the next and it was hard to get his attention sometimes.  I'm less concerned by the attention span/inattention though.  First of all it was a Very Cool place to play and naturally he wanted to try it all.  He didn't waste his time with things he deemed boring.  Secondly, we've been there before with Melissa.  She can wander into "Melissa la la land."  I remember discussing this with my mother and she laughed and said Chris was just like that.  In order to get his attention they had to cup his face with their hands, place their face a few inches away, look him directly in the eye, and then talk to him.  He also got the constant admonition to "think before acting."  Over time he matured and his attention span grew.  Melissa is doing much better now too, though she still sometimes lapses. 

The assessment was a bit of a mixed bag.  However it was clear to them that he should go onto the formal evaluation.  I guess the play based assessment is a sort of pre-evaluation.  They debated a bit about whether to have a psychologist there for the future evaluation since it wasn't clear exactly where he fell socially, but decided it would be a good idea.  Also they plan to bring an interpreter since he comes from a "bilingual household."  I laughed when they said that, but the speech pathologist explained that they want him to get credit for the things he knows in French and it might give them a better idea of where he is cognitively. 

The school district bureaucracy moves slowly, so the evaluation won't take place until beginning of December.  After that, they discussed having me meet with one of the preschool teachers.  Here's hoping he gets into the class and that it will of benefit to him.