Kittyboy's delay six months ago was 28-34%, 30% being what is considered in need of therapy (hence he "qualified by four percent"). Delay today - 21%! Woohoo, not only holding fast in his own curve but gaining. Sweet. I didn't think he was losing, but the gain is a happy surprise. Bree says articulation is just borderline 50%, he still qualifies on that, but he's way more understandable than he was six months ago. Among the questions she asked was, "How does he get your attention?" By continuing to repeat the same phrase over and over and over and over and over and over until it's like the droning of bees. He doesn't raise his voice, which is nice, but if he didn't GET my attention to begin with initially, say I'm washing dishes or in the laundry room, for me it only registers as background noise. Which is why he's added the tactic of grabbing my clothes and getting right in front of me, or if he can reach, putting his hand on my shoulder, leaning in so our noses are practically touching, and repeating said garble directly eye-to-eye. SMART BOY. He's noticed Mommy doesn't necessarily "hear" him unless he makes contact. It doesn't mean I understand him per se, but hey, then I know it's not random babble, he's communicating something, and can then resort to "Why don't you just show me?"
OOH. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to teach him, "Mommy I need you." He should be able to repeat that, and I will tell him that's what he says when he needs me. Followed by, when he's got me, the request.
And, "How does he ask for help?" By bringing you the thing and waiting patiently until you decipher what is wrong, or crying if he can't bring it to you. If you prompt him, "How do you ask for help?" he will make a noise and sign it. Help is not a word I've ever heard.
The majority of the evaluation was with a large flip book of pictures, each of which came with an instruction - "Which of these do you eat with?" "Which baby is sleeping?" and progressing to my favorite, pictures of a broken bike, crayons and paper, a book in a chair, and the scenario, "Katie hurt her knee. What do you think she was doing?" YEAH RIGHT! I giggled silently, Bree nodded with an understanding smile, and Kittyboy stared blankly, then tried to turn the page. Bree said, "Well, I have to keep going until he misses seven in a row." Which he never DID. We would have been there all morning. She finally said his scores were just all over the place, there were low-level things he was missing (doesn't answer yes or no really), though he has most of that section, there was a chunk of middle stuff totally absent (for example, wouldn't point to the nest that had no eggs, the basket that had no apples, etc, and got all colors wrong except yellow), but then there's a scattering of upper-level stuff he does get. Overall it came to a 21% delay, which is acceptable, but she wants him to continue therapy, so as to fill in the blanks and start speaking more clearly. And get some basics like yes, no (he says no, but not as an answer, as imitating what I just told him when he does something wrong, or when I say he can't have something), asking for HELP, etc.
So the verdict is... whatever speech therapy the school district throws our way should be fine! I told Bree that being all over the place is what he does best - like last summer when Fe (the OT at the time) thought he was just a genius, and Terri the SLP said that verbally he had an 85% delay. And both were true, Kittyboy was doing things involving reasoning that he shouldn't have known how to do, AND six-month-olds I saw at church were using more open consonants than he was.
Predictable is boring. He wouldn't want to be boring.
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