Last week I called the Birth-3 program in our county to ask about whether or not Celia should be evaluated for her speech. She speaks the words she does know just fine, but her vocabulary seems small to me for her age. Granted its always taken her more time than Nicholas to add new words to her vocab. She took a bit longer to use sign language as well. I think I've read that by age 2 a vocabulary of 50 words is preferred. I did a count and I think she is somewhere between 20-30.
The Birth-3 coordinator called me back today and asked me to explain what I am seeing with her and what we are doing at home.
What I am seeing:
1. About a 20 word consistant vocab, maybe 30 words with words she sporadically uses.
2. Sometimes she will say a new word and then we won't hear it for a while
3. Sometimes resorting to 'Da' when I ask her to say a new word (which is also what she calls Nicholas)
4. Can say a few 2-word combinations/sentences (hi mommy, bye poo poo, bye daddy, hi baby)
5. Uses signs for words she doesn't say yet
What we do at home:
1. Read a lot
2. Saying "Look at mommy's lips" when I am teaching them to say a sound so they can see how it is formed instead of just hear it. Also, having them feel my throat if it is a noisy sound.
3. Speaking and having conversations together
4. Having her say (or atleast attempt) a word before we give something to her (like making her say 'up' when she wants to be picked up instead of giving in to her whining.
5. Talking about things she is looking at in different ways ("The cow is brown" "Cows say 'moo'")
The Birth-3 man feels we are doing everything we would be asked to do anyway. He said he did think her vocabulary is a little limited right now, but its encouraging that she can use those words to speak 2-word sentences. I explained that even in the last week I've really been putting a lot of effort into working 1:1 with her and I've seen improvement and he said that was great. He explained that at this age speech growth is exponential, so we might see 5 new words one month, then 10 new words next month, and 20 new words the month after that.
He said he could come out and do an eval on her, wait and see how she does, or do an entire full eval to see if she would qualify for services (which he highly doubted she would). He said from this info, he would feel comfortable waiting 3 months and then seeing what she has learned. I agreed, so we talked about what kinds of things would be great to see in 3 months (when she is 26 months old). These are the things that we would love to see:
more 2 word sentences
one or two, 3 word sentences
vocabulary close to 50 words
tries to say new words without prompting
I'm glad I called him because I like that I have the reassurance that we are doing everything she needs right now. In my heart I don't think anything is wrong, but I really figured I better get a 2nd opinion to be sure. And also, it gets frustrating sometimes when the growth seems slow.
So, we'll re-evaluate in 3 months and see how she is doing. :)
We grow so fast. . .
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
It's good that you checked, so you can not be so worried. You are such a good Mom :) Let's see what the next 3 months bring...I bet she'll be saying "Grandma" soon!!!
ReplyDeleteGlad you called and talked to someone. It's always good to have an outsider give you their opinion. I think Celia sounds like she is doing really well with her talking, she's just doing it in her own time :).
ReplyDeleteGREAT advice and exactly what I would have said, too. Combining words is a great skill! But knowing her personality (if she's like Libby), she may just decide to explode with all of the words she knows when she wants to! I bet you'll be really surprised in just a few months (or even weeks). And he was right-- what you're doing is what we would tell a parent to do, so keep up the good work. I'm amazed at all they can do, really. Those towers, running, jumping... maybe she's focusing on those motor skills right now and language is on the back burner. But just wait until she starts focusing on it-- she's going to be talking up a storm. ;)
ReplyDelete