I waited to have Anna evaluated for the Early Intervention program offered by the state of New Jersey. Mostly the reason was I am trying to space things and situations that may cause her to feel uncomfortable. In my mind I thought 6 months after we are home if I feel that she is developmentally behind I would proceed with an evaluation keeping in mind that Anna in my opinion and for those of you who have met me know that I can be brutally honest was not that delayed with the exception of her speech.
Right from the minute that I saw her I knew she was quick and busy. Anna likes to know how things work which makes me laugh. Not knowing how something works is not in her realm of thinking. Anna and I work with matching colors, reading books and pretend play everyday.
During the evaluation in our home Anna was engaged in playing with one of the evaluators who was a Speech Therapist and I was interviewed by the Occupational Therapist. Just as I suspected Anna is pretty close to being on target with everything except her speech.
I guess some would think that I would be upset by this news but to honest with you many of our family members and friends have such a need to NOTHING to be out of the range of normal I am thinking it could be because although a number of my cousins are who are adopted on my side of the family this is not something that is spoken about almost as if their adoption into the family did not happened. Different time and place I guess.
I was relived to know that I am not crazy or ignoring some thing that is actually there. Anna's receptive language skills are intact and quite good. Anna can follow direction and is able to point or retrieve an object when asked. Anna makes many different sounds for a number of different animals, she can point at an animal and then makes the sound for that animal even if they are different colors or sizes like a dog is a dog even if it is a different breed or color. She knows many of her body parts also.
Anna's expressive language is delayed. Her evaluation shows that she is at the level of a 14 month old child. That of course is what shocked me I did not think that she was delayed that much.
To date Anna has a few words that she will say consistently
Dada, Papa, juice, ouch, bye-bye.
tThat is it! Anna babbles to herself and engages other by "talking" to them. She "talks" on the telephone or nearest seashell that she pretends is a phone.
Hearing you ask well yes I have taken her to an Audiologist for an evaluation, no infection was noted just some soft wax, as far as the actual hearing test Anna just could not complete it. Our plan is one day in the next couple of weeks to let her fall asleep in the car, drive her there and he will do the test in the car. The audiologist does not believe that she has a hearing issue and I agree but I do want to make sure.
I am very pleased with the evaluation and the evaluators with one exception they have limited experience with children who are internationally adopted. How could that be? Anna's speech therapy will be at home with me present. I know there is probably no adopted Mother out there who does not worry about attachment she may not mention it but some where in the back of her mind it is there. Some of the recommendations that were made we not what I would consider attachment friendly the biggest for me was the request to take her off the bottle, quite frankly not going to happen and I did tell them this was not up for discussion at this point in time.
I do believe that the therapy will be beneficial to Anna I wish I had know that the Speech Therapist lived in my town and had children Anna's age prior to giving her Anna's medical and social history. Living in a small town at times can be difficult and as crazy as Gerard is about not being pictured on the Internet I am equally crazy about the gossip mill in our town. Lesson learned.
School Days - November 2023
11 months ago
6 comments:
It sounds like Anna is right on track. I am glad to hear it. I am not surprised that her expressive language is delayed. After all, she is learning a new language. Colby took at least 2 months to say his first real word. Before that you could tell he was learning language and his receptive language was quite good. Things will come in time. Our little ones had a lot of growing to do: physically, emotionally, and mentally. Colby grew first, then his language developed, and then emotionally and then I knew his attachment would be ok. I know Anna will be great, she has a great mom and dad. Keep it up!
Melissa
Joy, I've made a couple of comments to you before and here is another. Our daughter had speech delays, but like your daughter seemed in line with everything else. She went to a speech therapist for about a year (once a week). She is still behind some, but not nearly as delayed as before. This therepist was a friend and helped me help Elizabeth. It was like I was given specific homework each week. It really made such a differance. Good luck!! Like you there were a few things that didn't fit into the "attachment" area so we just worked around it. Take Care -Lee
Hey Joy!
I am thrilled to hear she is doing so well receptively! If she is doing well receptively, she probably doesn't have a hearing problem :)
If you have any questions about ways you can get her to talk more, I'm happy to share my tips I give parents! The biggest one is to require her to talk or sign for every single thing she wants/needs before you give it to her!! It sounds like you have done a phenomenal job of teaching her about things, now we just need her to spit out what is on the inside!! If she doesn't have to though, she probably won't! ;-)
Call me anytime.
Joy,
We still have days when we have to remind Aidna to "use your words!" It comes along. With these little ones it just takes a little longer. As one of the other responders said, they had to learn a whole new language on top of everything else--new life, clothes, food, time zone, bed, lap to sit in, comforter, etc. . .Don't worry overmuch. She'll be fine. Sounds like everything is going along perfectly! God Bless. Stacy
Very encouraging!
Of course her speech is delayed because of the abrupt change in language - it's very normal.
It's great that her receptive language is on target - her brain is accepting and processing everything normally, she just has to learn more words - exact same thing as Kara! Our girls are FINE!!! VERY encouraging! She'll get there - she has plenty of time.
Speech therapy was Nicholas' favorite activity of the week the year he was in (graduated in Dec). It was also a tremendous help on the attachment front. I'm glad you're pleased with her eval.
You're such a good mama!
cm
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