I am not sure that I am vieing Ben objectively. This video below shows Ben playing with his "dollhouse." I don't want to lead (with my opinion), but how much of what he says is understandable?
The play he is doing is scripted. He always puts the family in the same spots. Right before this video, I tried to have the Mom and Dad interact but he took them from me so he could do his script. He also struggles a bit with manipulating them, which is why he drops them a couple times.
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Love my new phone. It beeped to let me know you had posted on my FB wall.
Without your prompting, this is what I got:
uh oh, oh dear, yay, mama, mama the potty, dada, ok dada, look, it is... (then something I didn't get), Ok, wow, ooooh, dollhouse, mommy loves you, meme (Liam right?), and bye bye. I would say I understood about 50% of what he was saying without hearing you clarify what he was saying or doing. Some of it sounded just like jargoning (when he said It is... the part after is I didn't understand). Is this in line with how he's been evaluated?
This is the thing. Kate jargoned. ALL.THE.TIME. Emily has never jargoned. She would say the word once or twice, I would correct her, and that was it. Aside from yogurt (which she still says Wer-gurt), her speech is pretty clear. Chase (my nephew) also jargons and that's all I hear from him. I have honestly begun to question whether or not jargoning is really normal in speech development.
Ok just checked my speech charts. At 2, 50% of speech is supposed to be understood by strangers and 75% at age 3. As he is closer to 3 than 2, I would expect his clear speech to be more BUT I also bet that he is clear enough that he doesn't make the cut for special services? (Though he might if his other needs like the toe walking, etc. are factored in).
Kelly, I appreciate all the thoughts. Liam jargoned all.the.time. I don't think Ben jargon's but he has so many substitutions that I think he is hard to understand. I understood 90% of what he said. Dave understands about 50% of what Ben says. The wife of one of Dave's co-workers watched Ben for Liam's IEP meeting and said he understood very little of what he said (she has 3 boys ages 6,4, and 2).
Ben's speech therapist discharged him from private speech saying that 75% of his speech is intelligable. 75%? I am not sure I agree that a stranger could understand 75%.
She also guessed he might not qualify for the level of services that Liam did as he would need to be 2 standard deviations below the norm.....which Liam wasn't either (Liam qualifiued based on his diagnosis). Ben tests 1 standard deviation below.
I worry that ben is falling into the same service crack that Kate does.
I definitely don't agree that he's 75% intelligible to strangers and question how a ST that he sees regularly could even make that assessment since she's not a "stranger." It may be that he was less jargoning and more substituting but they still weren't substitutions that an outside could decipher. Still, even at 50% intelligible I'm sure he wouldn't qualify for much at all. It's almost worse for these poor kids when they are borderline. It's like they are being set up to wait and see (and fail) and not giving the skills/tools/help they need to really succeed in life. Somebody at work told me today that Kate was born to me because I was the right mother for her and would be the one to get her where she needs to be in life. I've been pondering that all day.
I definitely don't agree that he's 75% intelligible to strangers and question how a ST that he sees regularly could even make that assessment since she's not a "stranger." It may be that he was less jargoning and more substituting but they still weren't substitutions that an outside could decipher. Still, even at 50% intelligible I'm sure he wouldn't qualify for much at all. It's almost worse for these poor kids when they are borderline. It's like they are being set up to wait and see (and fail) and not giving the skills/tools/help they need to really succeed in life. Somebody at work told me today that Kate was born to me because I was the right mother for her and would be the one to get her where she needs to be in life. I've been pondering that all day.
I think about 50% of what he's saying is understandable. It wasn't until I saw what he was doing with the mum/toilet that I got 'potty', because he doesn't use a 't'. Also, if that is scripted play, how is his functional speech even close to where it should be? It's not just about articulation, it's about use of language. I'd say he's not ready to be discharged from speech yet.
Sweet Ben. I don't think he's 75% intelligible either. All those "uh-oh. oh dear"s killed me. So cute!
Thanks everyone for confirming what I thought.
Sarah--I think functional speech is where both of my boys struggle the most.
Beth--The uh-ohs, oh dears crack me up too! He picked that up from the Wonder Pets. I love it until Liam taught him to say uh oh, oh poop! BOYS! When I get around to a longer post, I'll talk more about it, but I was told that Ben won't likely qualify for Ravenwood (if he qualifies he could go in April and until school ends in May). Ben is nearly the age Liam was when we arrived in Alaska, and I am thinking his language is about where Liam's was.
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