Assessment/Evaluation Questions

[Hammy58]

Hi everyone!!!

I hope everyone is hanging in there with your personal journeys and staying strong!

I have some questions about the assessment/evaluation process. I've just been raking my brain today, kind of obsessing over my son's recent evaluation. It's actually currently in process they have yet to do the speech/communication portion.

Some background before I get to my current questions. My son had his first evaluation 6 months ago because I called Early On with concerns about his speech. It was determined through the first evaluation that he was behind in speech, communication, fine motor, cognition and social. He was over a year behind in most areas if not a bit more (18 months). When I got the official report it sucked. Very emotional. But overall I agreed with it. I felt that he was behind and even by that much. He was inconsistently saying 6 words at this point speech wise and just kind of acted immature for his age. He was 24 months when this evaluation was done.

Fast forward to present day, he is almost 30 months now. He is a totally different kid. He now has a vocabulary of about 200 words I would say and is combining and using sentences occasionally (simple ones like choo choo broke, bye bye orange fishy, see you later diesel (our dog's name)) etc. He's also just exploded cognition wise. He's counting one to ten, recognizes the numbers, knows most of his alphabet with letter recognition, knows basic colors and shapes, great at sorting. I mean he is just a different kid, he has come such a long way and I am proud of him!

Seeing these crazy changes I feel like we have come so far and was hoping to see this in the reevaluation. Thus far our therapist has made it through fine motor, cognition, and gross motor in the reevaluation. She told us immediately after we finished up the other day that his skills are scattered from 15-48 months! First question.....has anyone had a scattering of skills this large? It seems odd to me.

She said his baseline was 15 months, and I find this hard to believe. I was present. When we initially started there were quite a few skills that he wasn't interested in and didn't even attempt (although we have done them a million times at home, for instance finding an object under a cup which he does easily) so she has to mark those as he couldn't do because she did not see him do them. As we continued with the evaluation he became more interested and just smashed it out of the ballpark (hence the skillset of 48 months which was for a large portion cognition). I'm just perturbed because unlike the first evaluation at 24 months which I agreed with where he was at and the results, I just don't agree with this. I really feel like it's off and I'm concerned because he will be starting special education preschool next school year and it is based off this evaluation. I want the correct information going to his school district because I want him to get the best help possible. I do think he's behind still in some areas, but not at the age level of 15 months. This was done using the Carolina evaluation. I've heard many talk of the Ruths-Griffith (I may have spelling wrong on that). What is the difference between these two?

I could ask the school district to do an evaluation on him rather than Early On so that they can go off their own evaluation and maybe get a better picture. I feel like this is an option for us but is it worth it? Am I overthinking this? I guess because I'm not sure exactly how they will use this in his schooling I'm just confused. I also want to say I think we have a fantastic therapist and by no means do I think she administered this incorrectly. I just feel like I have a typical 2.5 year old who needs to be interested in what he is doing to "perform".

Thanks for reading this incredibly long post. I appreciate any feedback or experiences with this.

 

[sequeena]

Hi there. I hope I can help a little my son has Global Delay which it sounds like your son has/had. It sounds like your tests are similar to the Ruth Griffiths test. Do the doctors do the different sections of the test over different days? An RG test is done in one go. Usually takes about 1.5 hours. It covers all the areas of development.

I know what you mean about the age ranges. My son's development ranges between 15 and 24 months so a 9 month gap. I think you should trust your gut. It does sound odd that he could have such a massive gap.

The RG test also tells you where your child falls on a development centile. My son is under the 1st centile which basically means out of 100 children 99 would be better than him developmentally.

It sounds like your son has come on massively which is wonderful!!

 

[Hammy58]

Thank you so much for the response Sequeena.

I'm going to see our therapist Wednesday so I'm going to specifically ask her about the RG and if this is similar. They used this same method for his last evaluation and it did not include the percentiles so I'm thinking it may be similar but not the exact same thing. I am in the US though so it may be they do things a bit differently here.

I've still been thinking a lot about the huge gap thus far in his evaluation, and I still find it odd. I'm going to wait until I get the final report in my hands, really look it over, and see if I can get anything else out of it as far as explanation goes.

I do think part of my problem with the whole evaluation process is that I find that I just get really emotional and stressed out. And I am extremely type A so I need thorough explanations of everything. I wish that I could step back and take a third party look at this but I find it so difficult because it's my son. This is something I really need to work on myself with this whole process is trying to look at it from their perspective without the emotions, the emotions skew the reality sometimes. Have you been able to somewhat separate the emotions from it? Any suggestions? I'm finding this very difficult.

 

[sequeena]

I get really stressed too. My son's delay may be the result of a genetic problem. His pediatrician has a habit of mentioning his dysmorphic features and such then tells me not to worry - of course I worry! Honestly I drive my OH mad. It takes me a good few weeks to be able to think rationally and then I get the results of the report and it sends me loopy again. I think it's completely normal to worry the way we do especially when there is currently no specific reason for why the delay is there.

 

[Hammy58]

Ha ha ha.....you sound just like me. I feel like I get some positivity going, my son will overcome this, nothing to worry about just keep pushing through yadda yadda yadda.....then a therapist has a new concern or we have another test to jump through and then it's downhill from there. Crazy train here we come. I also drive my OH mad. I'm lucky he's a very patient person.

I guess what kind of mother's would we be if we didn't worry though. Our little men need us

 

[sequeena]

Definitely

Do you have any therapies to help your son or has he come on by himself? We have Portage once a week for our son (similar to a nursery teacher who comes to work one on one with him) and we finished another round of speech therapy before Christmas. We're in the process of putting him into a nursery but we have to wait to get him a support worker.

 

[Hammy58]

We have a very similar set up. Once a week for an hour he see's a therapist in our home. She's like what you have, more of a nursery teacher, not necessarily a specific type of therapist, i.e. OT, PT SLP. She comes Thursday mornings.

Monday mornings we go to a group which is called it Takes Two to Talk. It's the Hanen Program. This is offered through our state's Early On. It's an hour and a half. I go with the parents in a classroom type setting and learn different techniques to help with my son's speech. My son goes with the other kiddo's and two speech therapist's while we're in class and he gets some circle time and other activities while I'm learning. Really the focus is more on me, teaching me. I have learned a lot and have really been able to incorporate the techniques. I'm not sure if Portage offers any group type settings but if they do it may be worthwhile for you and your son to check into. This group was kind of an add on that they threw out there for me if I wanted to participate and I said heck yes! It's been worth it.

My OH and I really also wanted to get him some more time with other kids since I stay at home and we have no other children. So we just recently (about 2 months ago) put him in nursery for 2 half days a week. This is Tuesday and Fridays. I really believe that this has helped him tremendously. Not necessarily just in the speech, but really in all areas. I have found that it really is true for him, he is totally watching these other kids and imitating them. He see's them sit on the potty, he now wants to sit on the potty. All of a sudden he likes pineapple and corn because that's what they ate the other day at his nursery and he saw the other kids eating it. Of course, how long have I been attempting these things at home with not even a hint of interest from him!!! Socially and play wise he is just blossoming and I really believe it is from this nursery. It's been a fantastic experience with them.

We will be changing this routine up once summer hits since Early On only goes until the end of the school year. We are still debating what to do but we know we will keep the nursery and probably up it to 3 half days a week. Then will possibly look into some private speech therapy for the summer before school starts.

Phew, wow, that was exhausting just typing all that. It keeps us busy! I really think though my LO really likes to do this stuff. He's always so happy when I pick him up from his nursery. It makes me feel like we are doing the right thing, or trying to at least.