Slowly but surely

Liam is making progress.  I sometimes often wonder if all the endless apppointments are worth the price of nap disruption for Ben and play disruption for Liam.  Today we went for a speech evaluation at Easter Seals.  Liam's last two speech evaluation placed him as speaking at the range of a 14-16 month old.  One was done as 24 months (showign a 8-10 month speech delay) and the other was done at 26 months (showing a 10-12 month speech delay).

Today Liam had his first standardized test for speech, and the results were very encouraging.  He is 29.5 months, but the evaluator scored it as if he were 30 months.  His overall speech tested at 23 months, which shows a 7 month delay.  His expressive speech was at the level of a 26 month old, which is barely clinically significant. His receptive speech has always been the main problem and is that of a 21 month old, so a 9 month delay. 

Based on this evaluation, Liam qualifies for outpatient speech therapy beyond what receives from early Intervention.  There is a waitlist, so extra speech won't start immediately, but eventually we'll add twice a week speech therapy sessions to our weekly Early Intervention appointments, weekly occupational therapy appointments, and twice a week ABA therapy appointments.