DS with Language Issues

[scholarly]

I am struggling with helping my DS7 and I am not sure how to proceed. He has had articulation problems and a stutter for the past few years. He did 5 months of speech therapy over the last school year. Then the speech therapist recommended  a break because he stopped progressing. He completely fixed his "L" and "TH" sounds, but did not make progress on his "R" sounds.  His stutter diminished while he was in therapy, although they did not work specifically on it.

At the end of speech therapy, I signed him up for a stuttering study at the local university. As part of the study, they did some language testing. We got the results, although they didn't really go through them with us. The results were surprising to me, in that his vocabulary and following direction scores were much lower than I would have expected, given the rest of his results. They were both in the 25% range, while the rest of his scores were more generally around 50% to one section that was in the 90's%. 

I took this as an indication we should work more on those areas, whether on the test-taking itself or on the skills. I was kind of flabbergasted to discover that DS doesn't understand so many words. I had no idea! I have always read to him copiously, which I assumed would help with his vocabulary, but it turns out he doesn't learn very well from context. We started doing Wordly Wise for vocabulary, which is going very well. I also started discussing with him more about what words mean and encouraging him to ask the meaning of words. He never asked about words before this. Now he does constantly, which is what I want him to do.

However, here is my problem. It is so, so much. Now that he realizes he can ask what things mean (he didn't seem to realize that words have meaning before?), it is all day. It is overwhelming. Today, I asked him to get a paper bag out of the pantry. He didn't know what "paper bag" meant and I had to explain that bags can be made of many different materials and in the pantry we keep plastic bags and paper bags. The paper bags are brown and made out of paper.  This time I didn't have to explain what a "bag" is, but sometimes I might have to. I have already defined "pantry" many times. I have to define "step" when I tell him not to step on something. Or define "shoe" when I tell him to put on his sandals and also call sandals "shoes." There is so much explaining everything.

 

Do I keep on just explaining things as they come up? Is there a trick to working on this? It is exhausting to me to do this, although I am glad he is now learning more. I just wonder if there is a more efficient way to work on the skill of learning word definitions from context?

Just as more info, he is reading at grade level and does fine with decoding words. He understands math intuitively and requires very little instruction to grasp new concepts in that subject. He also was given an IQ score as part of the study testing and it was high average. I replicated some of the "Following Directions" part of the testing to see if he needed work on that, and it appears he struggled with words in the directions. I did some exercises with him and he could accurately follow the directions... when he understood what all the words in the directions meant.

 

Does anyone have any advice (or encouragement) for me?

 

[TracyP]

I'm probably not the best person to offer advice. I'm in the midst of trying to figure out my own ds's language issues. I can offer sympathy, though. We go through the same thing here with the constant questioning and explaining. School takes twice as long as it should because there are so many rabbit trails. I would normally redirect, but I let it go because I'm just glad he's talking, and thinking, and making connections. Still, it is incredibly tiring. :grouphug:

[kbutton]

This might sound silly, but can you go through things thematically for a set amount of time every day? You might make a game of it and be proactive vs. reactive so that if you are really in the middle of something and can't stop to explain, you still get some set time to talk him through things? You might even choose picture books that have pictures of individual items, and then you can explain what each item on one page is. 

 

If he's scoring high average with these issues, he's likely got a higher IQ than testing can pinpoint right now.

 

Do they suspect more than just language issues? For instance, do they suspect a developmental disorder (like autism) or auditory processing problems? Has he had a good (not the quickie doctor's office version) hearing screening and eye screening?

 

This really makes me think hearing is an issue, and he's finally got enough text under his belt to start seeing problems for himself--for instance, knowing that there are vocabulary books that can teach him what things mean. He probably didn't know that, but he seems to be picking up on words that way. So, maybe the problem with context is that he can't hear, not that he doesn't actually understand the context. My younger son has auditory processing issues, and he used to say vowel sounds very indistinctly because they all sounded the same to him. When he learned that thin, then, and than were three different words (via print) vs. one word that had three meanings, he quite seriously thought we were playing a joke on him. It was a really big deal to him to encounter words in print and realize that he was lumping similar words together because he couldn't hear the difference. Then, he started listening more closely and learning the differences in those words. 

 

Your son sounds like he could be doing something like that.

[frogger]

I had two sons with articulation issues but high vocabs so I can't really give advice. But I do wonder if he knows his score is low, maybe he overheard you talking when getting results or with your spouse and maybe became concerned about it and is reacting. I mean it's good that he wants to do something about it but he may also just be worried about it. So if that is the case maybe reassure him and say here is our goals and look how we are accomplishing them and how much you've progressed. It's good to ask extra questions but sometimes we need to also accomplish the task at hand.

[Crimson Wife]

If you can get a copy of the book Bringing Words to Life by Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan through your library, I highly recommend reading it. Another good one is from Landmark School called Thinking About Language but I think the Beck et. al. book is more accessible to a layperson.

[kbutton]

You might check out this page from ASHA (expand the links--they are good, particularly the signs and symptoms): http://www.asha.org/Practice-Portal/Clinical-Topics/Spoken-Language-Disorders/

[PeterPan]

To me, his queries sound really good. I get that it's exhausting, but it's really interesting how kids get HUNGRY for something once their brains figure out what they need. I would just roll with it. It may be a very short-lived stage that you can laugh about later. I doubt it will go on years. Maybe, but I doubt it. It sounds like a stage.

 

Did they run the CELF or CASL? That's really phenomenal that you got so much good testing done through that stuttering study, wow. With the IQ plus language testing, you have a lot of info there to read the tea leaves and intervene. Language is HUGE, because all of our academics flow from it. My ds doesn't have vocabulary issues, but like the others I think it's worth asking *why* he has the vocabulary issue. Was anything else low in the language testing? You could post the scores here, if you wanted. Does he have any hearing issues? Any issues hearing with background noise? 

 

All your academics are going to need vocabulary, so if you can figure out why it was weak and keep on top of it, that would be good. He may need continued strategies to help him do science, history, etc.

 

As far as treatment, just in general I tend to go to vendors like SuperDuperInc or Linguisystems and go through everything they sell and see what I think fits. Just go with your gut. You really can't go wrong. That language testing gives you lots of ideas, and you'll be able to search them by topics. Within vocabulary, you have lexicon stuff (how the words organize in the brain systematically for retrieval), homonyms/synonyms, idioms, etc. etc. There's just a lot there you can look through and check and go yeah he's fine on this or no he could use some work on this. 

 

Often kids with language issues will then need specific help with reading comprehension areas like inferences, cause/effect, compare/contrast, etc. Maybe he won't, don't know his mix and I'm not an SLP. I'm just saying it's stuff to look for. I am using workbooks from Carson-Dellosa Search Catalog | Carson-Dellosa Publishing to work on them with my ds. I'm also doing sequencing workbooks with my ds. But it's really just looking at the testing, looking at your dc, and figuring out what language areas are weak. My ds finally got diagnosed with receptive/expressive delays, so he needs help to get out complete sentences for his thoughts and organize them into a sequence or narrative. We also work on non-literal things (idioms, figures of speech), inferences, jokes, etc. 

 

Great Ideas for Teaching  This is another place I love. DeGaetano's stuff is powerful, very powerful. Not flashy, but very well thought out. 

Edited July 15, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[PeterPan]

How is he with jokes? For my ds, jokes are really hard, because he doesn't get the double meanings. We have some cute little $4 joke books and we read them together and discuss why they're funny. For him, his vocabulary is high but he's glitchy on things like multiple meanings. So it's just lots of little areas to run down.

 

Total rabbit trail, but word searches are another interesting way to work on vocabulary. They're often organized by theme.

[kbutton]

From what you are saying, I would very definitely provide picture support for whatever you do. If he doesn't know what a paper bag is, talking about some object in the abstract (without a picture) is going to be fruitless until he learns a lot more (and maybe even then). 

 

Another term (I recently learned) is contextualized vs. decontextualized language. It's similar to the idea of concrete (physically available, in a picture, etc.) vs. abstract (no physical likeness), but I think it has more nuances than that. Just now realizing it's a "thing" I can be looking into.

[scholarly]

Thank you everyone for your replies! I am going through them one by one to think about the content.  I will also go find his test scores and post them. The one thing I can say off the top of my head is that he did have his hearing checked at an audiologist twice, about 6 months apart. He went once before he began speech therapy and again as part of the stuttering study. He passed both times with no problems.
 

 

This might sound silly, but can you go through things thematically for a set amount of time every day? You might make a game of it and be proactive vs. reactive so that if you are really in the middle of something and can't stop to explain, you still get some set time to talk him through things? You might even choose picture books that have pictures of individual items, and then you can explain what each item on one page is. 

 

If he's scoring high average with these issues, he's likely got a higher IQ than testing can pinpoint right now.

 

Do they suspect more than just language issues? For instance, do they suspect a developmental disorder (like autism) or auditory processing problems? Has he had a good (not the quickie doctor's office version) hearing screening and eye screening?

 

This really makes me think hearing is an issue, and he's finally got enough text under his belt to start seeing problems for himself--for instance, knowing that there are vocabulary books that can teach him what things mean. He probably didn't know that, but he seems to be picking up on words that way. So, maybe the problem with context is that he can't hear, not that he doesn't actually understand the context. My younger son has auditory processing issues, and he used to say vowel sounds very indistinctly because they all sounded the same to him. When he learned that thin, then, and than were three different words (via print) vs. one word that had three meanings, he quite seriously thought we were playing a joke on him. It was a really big deal to him to encounter words in print and realize that he was lumping similar words together because he couldn't hear the difference. Then, he started listening more closely and learning the differences in those words. 

 

Your son sounds like he could be doing something like that.

I like the idea of going through things thematically and just talking through things before we start the meat of the work.

They don't suspect developmental disorders. I am not familiar with auditory processing disorders, but I can look into those. No one has mentioned anything, but I am willing to consider other things. I can also look into eye exams, just to cover all our bases.

[scholarly]

If you can get a copy of the book Bringing Words to Life by Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan through your library, I highly recommend reading it. Another good one is from Landmark School called Thinking About Language but I think the Beck et. al. book is more accessible to a layperson.

 

I requested Bringing Words to Life from the library. Thank you for the suggestion.

You might check out this page from ASHA (expand the links--they are good, particularly the signs and symptoms): http://www.asha.org/Practice-Portal/Clinical-Topics/Spoken-Language-Disorders/

Looking through this webpage, he has some issues with the semantics section. He does not get idioms or inferences very well. He also has difficulty identifying the antecedent of a pronoun in normal conversation. There may be some thing he has difficulty with that I haven't even figured out yet, because he flies under the radar so well. I can look more into semantics.  Sometimes it is hard to distinguish if he doesn't know something because he is 7 or because there is a problem.  Even with the vocabulary, I had no idea, because he can handily define "alliteration" and plays very complex adult board games (like Scythe). However, alliteration has previously been specifically defined for him and when a kids plays board games with an adult, everyone is very careful to define everything, because they assume he doesn't know.

[kbutton]

Looking through this webpage, he has some issues with the semantics section. He does not get idioms or inferences very well. He also has difficulty identifying the antecedent of a pronoun in normal conversation. There may be some thing he has difficulty with that I haven't even figured out yet, because he flies under the radar so well. I can look more into semantics.  Sometimes it is hard to distinguish if he doesn't know something because he is 7 or because there is a problem.  Even with the vocabulary, I had no idea, because he can handily define "alliteration" and plays very complex adult board games (like Scythe). However, alliteration has previously been specifically defined for him and when a kids plays board games with an adult, everyone is very careful to define everything, because they assume he doesn't know.

 

An SLP can work on all of those things if you want them to. The IQ plus the board games makes me think that he is 2e, and the language issues are suppressing his IQ scores. 

 

I would hit language hard and unapologetically. I would teach things one at a time and then slowly blend them into other concepts. I say all this because my son is now 13 and has issues with some of these things (but not vocabulary), and my other son has auditory processing issues that cause glitches for him as well. However, I am not intuitive about teaching on these things, and I am using an SLP, expecting her to give homework for me, and then also just being suspicious of anything that seems off from now on.

 

My kids have had "issues" for years, but the language issue with my older son totally flew under the radar (except for "composition" problems and social skill/inferencing).His earlier testing didn't hint at any of the things we've identified that we recently discovered.

[kbutton]

If the SLP didn't run a TOPS or TNL, you might add those to your list of things to check, but some issues might not show up there until he's a little older. 

[scholarly]

To me, his queries sound really good. I get that it's exhausting, but it's really interesting how kids get HUNGRY for something once their brains figure out what they need. I would just roll with it. It may be a very short-lived stage that you can laugh about later. I doubt it will go on years. Maybe, but I doubt it. It sounds like a stage.

 

Did they run the CELF or CASL? That's really phenomenal that you got so much good testing done through that stuttering study, wow. With the IQ plus language testing, you have a lot of info there to read the tea leaves and intervene. Language is HUGE, because all of our academics flow from it. My ds doesn't have vocabulary issues, but like the others I think it's worth asking *why* he has the vocabulary issue. Was anything else low in the language testing? You could post the scores here, if you wanted. Does he have any hearing issues? Any issues hearing with background noise? 

 

All your academics are going to need vocabulary, so if you can figure out why it was weak and keep on top of it, that would be good. He may need continued strategies to help him do science, history, etc.

 

As far as treatment, just in general I tend to go to vendors like SuperDuperInc or Linguisystems and go through everything they sell and see what I think fits. Just go with your gut. You really can't go wrong. That language testing gives you lots of ideas, and you'll be able to search them by topics. Within vocabulary, you have lexicon stuff (how the words organize in the brain systematically for retrieval), homonyms/synonyms, idioms, etc. etc. There's just a lot there you can look through and check and go yeah he's fine on this or no he could use some work on this. 

 

Often kids with language issues will then need specific help with reading comprehension areas like inferences, cause/effect, compare/contrast, etc. Maybe he won't, don't know his mix and I'm not an SLP. I'm just saying it's stuff to look for. I am using workbooks from Carson-Dellosa Search Catalog | Carson-Dellosa Publishing to work on them with my ds. I'm also doing sequencing workbooks with my ds. But it's really just looking at the testing, looking at your dc, and figuring out what language areas are weak. My ds finally got diagnosed with receptive/expressive delays, so he needs help to get out complete sentences for his thoughts and organize them into a sequence or narrative. We also work on non-literal things (idioms, figures of speech), inferences, jokes, etc. 

 

Great Ideas for Teaching  This is another place I love. DeGaetano's stuff is powerful, very powerful. Not flashy, but very well thought out. 

 

I am pretty sure it was the CELF. I am still looking for the scores, but I did want to comment on the stuttering study. I am so very thankful that we did it. I initially wanted to participate because I felt that I would have loved to have more information about stuttering for DS, so we could save others some stress and worry by participating (and DS was agreeable to doing it). From what I understand, they don't know very much about stuttering at all. This study looks at genetics and it also is a longitudinal study where they do MRIs of the subject's brain once a year for a few years, trying to gather information about why stuttering occurs, why it sometimes persists, and what can be done about it. There is also the possibility that whatever brain thing causes stuttering also causes other language problems. By participating, we got a hearing test, the language testing, IQ testing, MRI of the brain, and they did a speech sample that they used to label the severity of his stuttering. Then they sent the info in a report. And also compensated DS for his time.

 

I will take a look at the materials on those websites. Thank you!

 

 

 

[PeterPan]

I requested Bringing Words to Life from the library. Thank you for the suggestion.

Looking through this webpage, he has some issues with the semantics section. He does not get idioms or inferences very well. He also has difficulty identifying the antecedent of a pronoun in normal conversation. There may be some thing he has difficulty with that I haven't even figured out yet, because he flies under the radar so well. I can look more into semantics.  Sometimes it is hard to distinguish if he doesn't know something because he is 7 or because there is a problem.  Even with the vocabulary, I had no idea, because he can handily define "alliteration" and plays very complex adult board games (like Scythe). However, alliteration has previously been specifically defined for him and when a kids plays board games with an adult, everyone is very careful to define everything, because they assume he doesn't know.

 

Go look at the Grammar Processing Program from Super Duper. That's what I used with my ds and it's STELLAR. It's super easy to use, and it will hit pronouns, all your basics. You can hit both expressive and receptive with it. Receptive will be him pointing to the picture that matches what you read. Expressive will be him imitating the pattern and trying to make sentences to tell you what to touch. For my ds, that is very hard! 

 

The careful listening of GPP is really good for them. It gets things clicking in their brain, so the benefit extends beyond the actual grammar. 

 

As far as inferences, you can look at that Spotlight on Reading series and back way up. Or look at Super Duper for things they have. That's probably going to be a perpetual thing, honestly. You've got inferences with social, inferences with non-verbal, inferences in reading, on and on... 

[PeterPan]

The CELF kicks out scaled scores, yes? So there the mean is 10, standard deviation 3. So someone can be very low relative to IQ but NOT get flagged by the school for intervention. There is a diagnosis of expressive/receptive language delay that is based on discrepancy. They finally tacked that on for my ds. But it can explain why the school might not be intervening even when he would clearly benefit from intervention. 

[kbutton]

You probably didn't get this kind of report from the SLP, but you might be able to get one. The CELF report the SLP would get from scoring would give you an item analysis that will tell you what areas of grammar, sentence construction, etc. is working or not working. This sample report has an item analysis section:http://images.pearsonclinical.com/images/Assets/CELF-5/CELF-5_Sample_Report.pdf

 

If there are a lot of items in the not tested column, I believe that means that the child being tested didn't make it that deep into the test due to wrong answers. So, if something is not administered, I would assume that the child is missing a skill that would allow them to understand those things. Hopefully someone will chime in if I'm totally wrong on that kind of a thing, but that is how I understand it. If the SLP can give you some of the information, that might help you select materials, such as the Grammar Processing Program, or you might find something else on a speech site that is more appropriate (for instance). 

 

My son looks pretty good on the CELF (he can use logic to get through some things he doesn't know outright), but the item analysis gives us a little more data to check to see if we can find gaping holes because he definitely has them, and stuff shows up on the other testing.

[Crimson Wife]

The CELF kicks out scaled scores, yes? So there the mean is 10, standard deviation 3. So someone can be very low relative to IQ but NOT get flagged by the school for intervention. There is a diagnosis of expressive/receptive language delay that is based on discrepancy. They finally tacked that on for my ds. But it can explain why the school might not be intervening even when he would clearly benefit from intervention. 

 

Technically, SLP's are not supposed to do this. They are only supposed to diagnose patients who fall below a certain level on standardized tests (depending on funding source it's either 1 standard deviation below the mean or <16th percentile, -1.5 s.d. or <10th percentile, or -2 s.d. or <7th percentile).

 

I personally disagree with this since it means a lot of "twice exceptional" students get excluded because their underlying high IQ means they can partially compensate for the language impairment to the point where they're coming out low-normal.

 

Now if you're a self pay customer, a SLP can still offer therapy regardless of whether the client actually meets clinical standards for a language disorder. One of my DD's sessions each week is self-pay (as of June I switched this from auditory rehab-focused to social skills training). That we can continue for as long as the SLP and I mutually agree it's beneficial.

[PeterPan]

Pronouns and antecedents are some of the first things they do in GPP, and if he's struggling with that he has more holes. When we got into GPP, it became obvious what was challenging for him. It's thorough and spirals, keeping everything fresh, building, so it's just a really solid way to work through a LOT of concepts and catch holes. 

 

Btw, we didn't get a very good breakdown from the CELF. I can look again, but we've had it twice and never gotten more than just gross categories. I can go look. It might be that the CELF for older kids kicks out more or that there's more and some people just don't bother to put the breakdowns in the report.

[PeterPan]

Technically, SLP's are not supposed to do this. They are only supposed to diagnose patients who fall below a certain level on standardized tests (depending on funding source it's either 1 standard deviation below the mean or <16th percentile, -1.5 s.d. or <10th percentile, or -2 s.d. or <7th percentile).

 

I personally disagree with this since it means a lot of "twice exceptional" students get excluded because their underlying high IQ means they can partially compensate for the language impairment to the point where they're coming out low-normal.

 

Now if you're a self pay customer, a SLP can still offer therapy regardless of whether the client actually meets clinical standards for a language disorder. One of my DD's sessions each week is self-pay (as of June I switched this from auditory rehab-focused to social skills training). That we can continue for as long as the SLP and I mutually agree it's beneficial.

 

2017 ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Code F80.2 : Mixed receptive-expressive language disorder  F80.2 was the code she used and this is what it says.

[Crimson Wife]

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (professional association for SLP's) specifically has taken a position against "cognitive referencing".

 

Concerns regarding the use of cognitive referencing include

• the relationship between language and cognition is neither straightforward nor static,
• tests purporting to assess cognitive and linguistic performance often measure the same fundamental skills,
• assessments typically used for deriving cognitive/language profiles yield sizable variation in discrepancy determinations,
• children with impaired cognitive and language skills that are commensurate would not receive the diagnosis of language impairment or the associated language services they need.

 

SLP's are not supposed to use a discrepancy between IQ and language scores as basis for diagnosis. They're supposed to only diagnose when a child is outside the normal range on the language assessment.

[PeterPan]

Ok, just had the CELF 5 with an SLP, and she lists the subtests (sentence comprehension, linguistic concepts, word structures, word classes, following directions, formulated sentences, recalling sentences, understanding spoken paragraphs, pragmatics). But as far as further breakdowns, she didn't include data on that. So like to say he needs to work on wh-questions or pronouns or this or that, she didn't put any minute data on it. She says things, but doesn't list data.

 

I'll tell you though, a lot of this is just the therapist or Intervention Specialist gets in there, sees it, works on it. We had an IS out and she could peg and predict accurately which areas ds was going to need goals for, even before we had the testing. There are patterns to stuff. So if a kid is 7 and he has issues with x, they're going to go ahead and write goals for a whole bunch of things, because they know it's all there and flows. That's why something like GPP, where you're hitting it ALL, can be really brilliant. 

 

And I'm all for data and digging in, sure! But I find just at this age they don't bother. The SLPs and IS are just kinda crass and they do things and find more and pile on more. The data gets you in the door, qualified, and then they find more things to work on and more and more. Really, to look at EVERYTHING, you'd have to run hours and hours with the CASL. We've done it and I like it, sure. But it's just kind of prohibitive. 

 

I find evals frustrating in a way, because there's such a gap in the school system between Mama Bear (what we want to make happen so our kids can function optimally) and what they are like yes, there are numbers that qualify him to make this happen. So that, to me, goes back to your gut thing and looking at the dc. So, for instance, I'm looking at my ds' CELF, and his 45th percentile, 98 standard score, core language score is not so low that they're like pity pity. There's a HUGE gap between expressive and receptive in his scores, which is what we see in real life and what is giving him problems in real life. And the discrepancy there between what he can really do and what he ought to be able to do is astonishing. 

 

So for me, it doesn't matter if what SLP calls it a delay and another doesn't. The reality is, it IS an issue for him, IS showing up, and IS treatable. And that's in fact what we see, that when we use the data to drive our therapy we're getting changes in real life. Like we're working on sequencing narratives lots of ways (from picture prompts, with only text, original using toys, etc.), and it's carrying over to real life, improving his ability to tell you about what he did, for instance. So the data was there to drive that kind of intervention, to tell us yes there really is a discrepancy, we're not crazy, but no it's not so objectively low that the ps says oh my lands we're really, really, really gonna make goals for that. He actually does have goals for it, but they'll couch it in academics, which is not where it should be. 

 

Well that's a rabbit trail. It's just kinda what we live, that thing of looking at the data, comparing, and going ok does that discrepancy explain this thing I'm seeing in real life and could I DO something about it... And with my ds, when we do something about it we get changes. Like we did GPP, and he literally started reading environmental print. Before GPP, he was a hyperlexic dyslexic, finally decoding but not understanding what he was reading. And we had a $$$ neuropsych blow us off and SLP not focus on it. Oh well. I did the GPP anyway and got changes. 

[PeterPan]

Crimson, I hear you. We had a whole discussion, that SLP and I, about cognitive referencing.

 

For me it was helpful to have someone finally validate that I'm not crazy, that he is having significant issues. 

 

Part of the other thing is you're looking at a dc who has had WAY more intervention than the average bear. Like if he were in the ps or getting typical speech therapy, how many hours a week or month would he get? Like lets be real, how many? I think my ds' IEP says some pitifully low number. Like maybe it's an hour a month. Let's pretend it's 4 hours a month, but I don't think it is. You know how many hours I really make sure my ds gets a WEEK? Let's just say my ds gets more hours of speech therapy level interaction, that's someone going through speech therapy materials with him or working on motor planning or speech, more hours in a WEEK, than the ps would make happen in a MONTH. And my ds has had that for YEARS. But let's just say now, looking at language scores. 

 

So you can't just say oh right now he doesn't have a score low enough, blah blah. I think the label fits accurately when you look at the whole picture. We had a moment where I had not begun direct language intervention. Previously we had only worked on motor planning, and there was a point where I finally realized he was literally hyperlexic, not understanding basic things. He was 6 and not understanding pronoun antecedents, wh-question words, prepositions, NOTHING. And we were using a (then) novice SLP who, in her (spit spit, I have really nasty feelings about this) did NOT tell us to get a baseline. I began using speech therapy materials for language, including GPP, in quantities per day that were WAY above what the ps would have made happen, and I got a HUGE jump. I kick butt. I'm not certified, but I can pick up pages and use them and use my head, kwim? And we got results.

 

We're never going back to that window in time and we'll never have that baseline of low again. We won't be going back to a number that low. No, it's not as low as your dd's number. Maybe it would have been. But lots of kids with autism have numbers that are funky and the kids need intervention. How low was it? We can't know, because we were using an idiot who didn't tell us to get a baseline. It was MY fault because *I* didn't do it right and get a baseline. And I can't get that window back.

 

But I'm not gonna be head in the sand anymore and go well it's really not happening. I got the numbers up. We stopped intervention and he regressed dramatically. That CELF5 score is DOWN multiple standard deviations, btw, from what I had gotten it UP to. Like literally his scores go up, down, up, down depending on the intervention. So obviously I'm not gonna sit here and not intervene and say well it doesn't matter until they drop below a certain point. They've regressed 2SD. They're causing him problems. The issues respond to intervention. We're intervening.

 

And yeah, an SLP had the audacity to call it f80.2, lol. I think she sat with him and she saw what was happening. She spent 3.5 hours with him, doing tons of stuff, and looked over all his files from years and years of evals. And when she put that, I was surprised, because it wasn't what I went looking for. But I realized ok, if that's what's going on, then we can actually DO something about this. We can actually structure experiences and work on it.

 

It does not make sense to say that a 90-something percentile IQ dc can get out his thoughts with 30th percentile expressive language scores. He just can't. And we can go oh well that wasn't objectively low. Fine, but that was UP from where it was before intervention and DOWN from where it was during intervention. And the law says that if the intervention has been done and there's progress then that means the intervention should CONTINUE. There is that concept. Our ps is just so strapped that they don't care about things like that. I had literally gotten him up to IQ-appropriate on speech, and it the language scores crashed when we pulled the intervention. So it's the whole picture, not one score.