Liam continues to do well at school. He is excited to arrive every morning and runs into the classroom. Without fail, he is upset when I say good-bye and cries, but I watch him through the one-way mirror and he is happy within moments. When I come to pick him up, he is playing happily, usually singing and dancing. He is always happy to see me, grabs my hand, says "bye bye", and pulls me out the door. Liam's teachers tell me he is a sweet boy, but that is no surprise. They tell me that he is starting to join the group more and play better with others, and that is a big step in the right direction. Last week, he had a meltdown when it was time to leave his room for bible study, but this week he happily went and participated.
We got his Early Intervention Assessment yesterday, and while nothing in it were surprising, it is hard to see your child summed up in black and white. According to the assessment, Liam is performing above age level in cognitive skills and motor skills. With the ability to count to sixteen and letter recognition, I had no doubts about his intellectual capabilities, but it is still nice to read. I was not surprised that he is ahead on his motor skills as he has lots of energy. He is slightly delayed in adaptive skills. He has a 7 month delay in social/emotional skills, and his language skills are 7 to 10 months delayed.
I notice that many people are confused by Liam's language abilities. He can count, sing songs, and has books memorized. His actual word count is somewhere around 100. He can parrot phrases and sentences. However, he does not use language to communicate. This is what I find most worrying.
I am noticing a big improvement with occupational therapy. I am not finding much improvement in speech, unfortunately. He is adding words slowly, and I am hearing more words during the day. He still doesn't really use language to communicate and doesn't show any interest in talking to me. I try to focus on the progress and not get down about the speech coming slowly, but it can be hard.
Liam reading a book:
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