Owen's Developmental Evaluation

Today Owen had his developmental evaluation by the Children's Developmental Services Agency. I was worried how he would perform for a stranger but I was pleasantly surprised how fast he warmed up to the evaluator. She had him perform all sorts of tasks, from placing cubes in a cup to matching objects to completing puzzles. As I feared, he came to a point where he was just done and became clingy. The end didn't go as well but I felt like she got an accurate picture of what he could do. While she scored his evaluation, I fed him lunch and then we went over the results.

He scored in the average range in all his daily activities, socialization, and fine motor skills. He was right on the border with gross and expressive language. He was below standard on receptive language. Because he was below on one and borderline on the others, he was borderline for qualifying for services. The evaluator and I both agreed though that it would be in his best interest to get services. At 19 months, he is too young to qualify for speech therapy so we will do developmental therapy, also called play therapy. For the next 6 months, a therapist will come in once a week for an hour to work on goals that we have put in place. Some of his goals were like being able to name an object instead of just pointing and grunting. We also will work on more coordination activities, seeing how he is still learning to walk on all surfaces (currently he won't walk on any uneven surface, like grass or sand).

People have asked me how I feel about all this. I personally am excited about it. After being a teacher for so many years, I realize the need for early intervention and I want to do anything that will help Owen. As a teacher, I hated when parents were naive or stubborn about their child's need for help because they didn't want a label. I want to help Owen now when he's only a little behind rather than later when he is really behind. I'm looking forward to seeing the activities the therapist brings and implementing them on a daily basis.

Thanks everyone for your support and your advice! I'll keep you updated as we go along.