Ben just had a formal speech and language assessment, as preparation for determining special education eligibility. Wow. The SLP who administered it is not Ben's speech therapist, and in fact she had never met him before. In both receptive and expressive language, he was testing at the 4.5 year age range, and at that point she would stop testing him and move on to the next category so that he wouldn't fatigue too early. She also assessed his articulation, and noted the same fronting and consonant substitution errors that his regular speech therapist has been working on with him, but also that he was highly intelligible. Despite all of the very long, exhausting tests, Ben stayed focussed and even had a lot of fun with it. Whatta guy.
At one point, the SLP pointed to a hand-drawn picture of a baby and asked, "What is this, Ben?" Ben studied it for a long time, and I was beginning to think that he didn't understand what he was supposed to do. And then he responded, his voice heavy with doubt, "Well, it's supposed to be a baby." Everyone's a critic!
I'm looking forward to reading the report, which she'll send us in a week or so.
Modular Arithmetic
2 years ago
7 comments:
"Supposed to be a baby!" I love it! Way to go, Ben- awesome job!
Nolan's receptive language topped out in the 4.5 year range on the test, but because of his "scattering of scores" (missing questions at earlier age levels) his receptive language "only" tested at 3.5 years. Not bad for a 2 year old kiddo with a moderately severe loss!
We did have issues with articulation (and still do- hearing aid limitations with low frequency sounds). We now have issues with m, n, and g (and miss /f/ entirely). We're working on speech reading and using finger-spelled letters to cue the missing sound. Hopefully he'll stabilize in that region (now at 60-65dB)!
All I can say is WOW! Ben is certainly an inspiration.
That's so awesome! He is doing fantastic! I read about all these little kiddos getting these tests done, and I could have sworn they never did these tests on me...Or I just have a faulty memory of my toddler years. Ha- "supposed to be a baby!" Definitely had me grinning ;)
Wow! Already a raconteur!
Hey that is really great work Ben and Julia.love the "supposed" in that.
The sarcasm made my day! :)
Can't wait to see you guys in a few weeks!!
Way to go, Ben! Grammy is proud of you! I know, you have to humor those testers....Ben knows a baby when he sees one and that was not the best artwork! LOL!
Hugs, MOM/Grammy Wilson
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