As I mentioned in my last entry, we were a little worried about Mallory's speech. During Christmas break I realized that she hadn't gained one more word in her vocabulary for about a month so I decided it was time to look into it. I called my pediatrician and she suggested I start with an evaluation at the CDSA in Winston-Salem. We very quickly met with our service provider and got an evaluation scheduled for the middle of January. A child psychologist came and spent about 2 hours with Mallory and I at the house. Of course, she loved the individual attention! Their assessment consisted of 5 different areas of development and in all 5 she had typical development even in communication. However, that score consisted of both receptive and expressive so she did an additional assessment that broke up the 2 areas. Based on this test, Mallory did have a 45% delay in expressive language (scored at 11 months and she was 20 months at the time) so we qualified for the services of the agency. The next week we created our Family Service Plan where we decided to continue with a speech evaluation. Due to the stomach flu and other various illnesses our scheduled evaluation was delayed (no pun intended!) ;) so we didn't get in until mid February. About a week before the appointment I just knew she would not qualify. Her speech had exploded- she copied everything we said and had probably gained about 20 words in a month. Well, I was right. She scored at almost exactly her chronological age. And about 3 weeks later we continue to hear more and more. It's so exciting to hear and I smile every time she says something to me. This was the ONLY area we have ever worried about and here we are almost 10 months past surgery and she is right where we should be.
What a miracle!
