beaners Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Now what? Today the pediatrician gave us a referral to the local early intervention program for speech services for my 2 year old. We're supposed to get a call in about a week. I'm assuming there will be a combination of assessments from someone coming to my house and possibly a questionnaire that I answer. Is that accurate? I think our biggest issue is the fact that I end up translating almost everything he says, and even I don't know what he is saying a lot of the time. I'm also not sure how age-appropriate my expectations are for him, because I can't help but mentally compare his talking to his two older sisters. The pediatrician didn't hear him say anything intelligible other than "yes" while we were there, but he also spent almost all of the appointment crying because he did not want to be there. His verbalization while we were there was definitely far below average for his age. Could anyone shed some light on what the evaluation process will look like? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 They'll come to your house, observe, ask questions/do questionaires. E/I speech was done for my DD and we found it very helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbgrace Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 This will probably vary a lot by state or even area within a state. Generally, though, yes. I would expect someone (maybe more than one though budget wise likely one) to arrange to come to your home and evaluate your child. This will probably be a lot like play for the child. I would expect they will ask some questions of you as well and you will be able to ask questions, give concerns, etc. This is assuming your state has in home services. I don't recall ever filling out a questionaire myself until we were much older and evaluating for a specific condition/diagnosis. But it's been so long I might have forgotten. It's good you're getting an assessment! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dobela Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 This also varies from provider to provider. Some come to the home, but others will ask you to come to their center. If you would prefer that, then I would ask for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 SHould be a lot of play for your son with the evaluator coming with a bag of toys/games/puzzles that are age appropriate. My kids never minded those things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beaners Posted October 12, 2012 Author Share Posted October 12, 2012 Thanks everyone! We have an evaluation next Friday. Another question that I suppose will vary by location - is there a set criteria to qualify for services? Will the evaluators be interested in things like how many words he uses? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NittanyJen Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 Generally function must be x months behind normal or y % below typical to qualify for state paid services. They can be quite helpful. If you disagree with the assessor, document any observations made you felt were inaccurate for purposes of an appeal, but most really are trying to help. Our first assessor completely missed the mark, but that experience is not the norm, and the decision was later reversed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomtoCandJ Posted October 13, 2012 Share Posted October 13, 2012 I agree they are very helpful. My dd was 2 years and 7 months when she started but had the speech ability of around an 18 month old. She has progressed so much since then that this year they decided she didn't need speech services for year 2 head start. (She will be 4 Nov. 26th) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beaners Posted November 2, 2012 Author Share Posted November 2, 2012 UPDATE: We are in exactly the same place now that we were when I posted this. Unbeknownst to me, we were referred to the wrong county. I didn't find that out until a pair of people showed up at my door for our evaluation, but left without doing it. That was two weeks ago. The correct county finally had us in their system yesterday, so now they have my demographic and contact information. I still need to wait for a phone call from someone to schedule our evaluation. In the meantime...we have a distinguishable "Daddy!" I am thrilled. Up until now, only my husband and I could tell the difference between my son's "Mama" and "Dada." I'm also a little concerned that if we're right on the line for qualifying, this might have been something that would have tipped the scales. Either way though, it's so nice to hear! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoVanGogh Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 Another question that I suppose will vary by location - is there a set criteria to qualify for services? Will the evaluators be interested in things like how many words he uses? Generally function must be x months behind normal or y % below typical to qualify for state paid services. We went through our county's early intervention program when DS was 2. They sent out an OT, a PT and a speech therapist. All three interacted with DS for several hours while evaluating different areas. He was rated as six+ months behind in speech, so qualified for speech therapy. The evaluation was very painless. They just played with DS, had him do puzzles and talked with him to see how he interacted. Generally, they rate like - child is x year, y months for this developmental milestone, but is xy age old. (Ex: DS just went through OT eval and was found to be 6 years/1 month for penmanship and 13 years/6 months for gross motor skills, but he is 10 years/10 months old.) The child has to be found a set amount below expectations to receive services. UPDATE: We are in exactly the same place now that we were when I posted this. Unbeknownst to me, we were referred to the wrong county. I didn't find that out until a pair of people showed up at my door for our evaluation, but left without doing it. That was two weeks ago. The correct county finally had us in their system yesterday, so now they have my demographic and contact information. I still need to wait for a phone call from someone to schedule our evaluation. :grouphug:I am so sorry! I feel your frustration. :grouphug: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beaners Posted November 7, 2012 Author Share Posted November 7, 2012 Update, again. We finally have our intake evaluation scheduled. It is more than a month away, and that was the earliest slot available. It will have been more than 2 months since we first got our referral. I am shocked and disappointed that it will take that long, especially when the other county would have done our evaluation a little more than a week after our referral. The county line is soooo close. The property across the road is actually in both counties. I really wish we were working with the other county instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokyomarie Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 It is so hard to wait once you know you want to go through with an evaluation. I hope the time goes quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 :grouphug: My just-turned-three-year old says only a few words spontaneously ("no" being his most often heard one). He can repeat words, but they aren't usually clear (other than "ice" being /Iss/ and "yes" being /yes/). Our pediatrician asked for us to get him evaluated at his 3 yr apt (Sept). I called our local school district (who handles early intervention & the older kids for our county ). It took two weeks to get a meeting just to get some paperwork done. It took another month before they could come to our house for an eval (today). We will have a meeting with them in an month (mid-Dec) to discuss the results. Two ladies came today. One lady took notes & the other tried to interact with my son. (He's really shy.) The magic bullet ended up being her iPad. They didn't get through the "articulation test" app she had on there, but they played a couple other iPad games and tried to get him to repeat words for them. The notes-lady's job was to write down what word he was supposed to be saying & what he actually said. ("ship" = /it/, "boat" = /oat/, etc.) I'm glad I didn't have that job because I have a VERY tough time telling what sounds he's using when he says a word. (And they were having a tough time, too.) They told me before they left, "He'll qualify for services, obviously." In our case, I had a questionnaire I filled out in between my paperwork meeting & his evaluation. The waiting was tough. I'm just glad the eval is over. :tongue_smilie: Good luck. ... And don't worry about the "Daddy." It is likely not going to push him over the edge one way or another. :-) If you have time, read some threads on here about fish oil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beaners Posted November 19, 2012 Author Share Posted November 19, 2012 Thanks everyone. An evaluation spot opened up at a time we were available, so we went in to do our evaluation last week. We'll see what the results are in a couple more weeks. One of the things the evaluator mentioned was possibly a problem with processing that is causing the speech delay. He was doing the tasks quickly once he figured out what she actually wanted him to do, but it took him longer than average to figure out what he should be doing. It took him a while to get comfortable with the new place. I'd love to know how he would have been if the evaluation had been at home like the other county would have done. Now we're just waiting to see what our options are. This county doesn't do home visits for speech therapy, and apparently the waiting lists to get into speech at providers in the county are up to a year. I'm not sure what that will mean for us. We are also getting an audiologist appointment set up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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