Charlie's Speech Therapy Evaluation

Charlie's speech therapy evaluation was this afternoon. It was at the same center (Children's Choice for Therapy) that did the OT evaluation yesterday. This time the evaluation was done solo, without a parent present. The speech therapist said she was not even going to score Charlie (on whatever standardized test they use) as she got little responses back from him. She said she can tell that he knows what she is saying as he pointed to pictures when she asked him to, but did not express any language that was responsive . . . just more of the repeating and echoing of what she was saying to him. She felt it was a very big positive, though, that he transitions very well and does not get upset when his routine or schedule changes. This should be helpful during therapy for him.

Both the speech and OT evals should be completed by next week so we can hopefully make a plan and start scheduling for these two therapies right away.

I do feel that Charlie definitely has the words "in him". . . he just has a hard time getting them out. Sometimes, though, they just pop out of him. Today when we got back home from the evaluation and I was getting him out of the car, I dropped a block that was in the back seat. He very clearly said "You dropped it." And the other day he had his hands full and told Adam "Can't open the door." So, again, I know it's there. He does communicate his wants/needs in very basic terms such as "want water" or "want some juice". . .but we will be working on making him use his words for ALL of his requests and expanding his sentences to "I want water" etc. This is going to require some training and learning for me and Adam as we are so quick and used to just getting Charlie what he wants without making him ask for it first. We also have to work on making him look at us when he is speaking and when we speak to him. At OT yesterday, she said "We're getting ready to rock Charlie's world." He's had it "good" so to speak in that he's been somewhat catered to, but now we will be expecting more of him.

On a good note, the teacher said he had a great day at school today which is always a nice thing to hear!