Early Start Program Results

The past 5 months went by incredibly fast! I located the Early Intervention program here in Raleigh, which is the equivalent to Early Start, which was who Riley was seeing in San Diego.

Four really nice ladies came for Riley's initial evaluation today. They each introduced themselves as their different roles. One lady was an occupational therapist, one was a speech therapist, one was a social worker, and another was an audiologist.



Going into the appointment, before the evaluation started, I knew that Riley probably would score the lowest in the areas of speech and vocabulary, identifying objects and sorting items. I was somewhat correct about those things, but there were also a few other weaknesses I wasn't aware of until today.



I know Riley has a strong personality, but wow...I was amazed at how poorly he listened to instructions!! Most of the time he was just being a defiant (almost) 2 year old, but at other times he just didn't understand directions.

Here's an example:
One of the ladies asked Riley to bring a toy car to me. they asked over and over again and he wouldn't bring it to me. After we KNEW Riley wasn't going to give me the car, the lady took one wheel off of the car to that it wouldn't roll anymore. He turned to each lady to ask them to help him put the wheel back on. Instead of helping him, they told him to "give the car to mommy". He immediately came over and brought me the car. They told me that they knew he understood the direction to give me the car, but that he didn't want to until it was broken and he needed me to fix it.



Another time, they asked Riley to put a ball into a cup. They told me NOT to point at the cup. They wanted to see if he knew what the direction was without me physically showing him. He struggled in just about everyone of these exercises. I wanted so badly to point and help him out, which made me realize that I do that a lot. I need to start instructing him to do things without any pointing or physical direction.

After about 2 and a half hours of evaluation, a hearing screening and a vision screening, here are the results:

An average score for Riley's age (22 months) is anywhere between 85-115
GROSS MOTOR SKILLS: 99 (average)
Gross Motor Skills are major movement functions such as walking, maintaining balance, coordination, jumping and reaching.

NON VERBAL SKILLS: 84 (slightly below average)
Non Verbal Skills are Riley's ability to sort and match different objects

FINE MOTOR SKILLS: 112 (average)
Picking up and holding objects.

RECEPTIVE: 70 (below average) Equal to the receptive skills of a 15month old
This score was based on the following receptive skills tested - Recognizes body parts and clothing articles in large pictures. Understands simple yes/no questions. Understands differences in personal pronouns (me, you). Follows a series of two - three simple relations commands with the same object. Appears to listen to meaning of language, not merely words. Recognizes many common objects and pictures as they are named.

EXPRESSIVE: 79 (below average) Equal to the receptive skills of a 16month old
This score was based on the following receptive skills tested - Imitates animal sounds and other environmental sounds in play. Refers to self by name. Uses "no" frequently. Uses "my" to declare ownership. Begins combining words to form two-word phrases. Asks questions by raising pitch of voice at end of word or phrase.

OVERALL COGNITIVE SCORE: 82 (Mildly Delayed)

Based on his score, his syndrome and past health issues, Riley qualifies for the early intervention program here in Raleigh. This means Riley will have weekly visits from different therapists who will work on Riley's weaker skills. He starts speech therapy next week.

Riley didn't pass his hearing screening AGAIN, so they referred him to an audiologist who will help determine what steps we need to take with that.

As far as they could tell, Riley's vision seems fine, but a specialist will look at the report this week and let me know official results.

So... what all this means is...We're back into the swing of things! I'm really glad Riley is going to start getting the therapy he needs, and I'm even more glad to learn some new ways that I can help in his progress!