Hi, I posted on this board a little over a week ago after a speech therapist suggested some sensory issues with my 25month old son. The past 2 weeks have been beyond stressful. His pediatrician feels that it is just a speech delay but gave me an EI referral. We have our assessment on the 11th. In the interim, we met with another private speech therapist for an evaluation. It was pretty inconclusive. She said it was too soon to say what is going on because she doesn't really know my son. She said she would like to hear him saying more words but was encouraged by how he played and mimicked her. She said she liked seeing him try to communicate.
My husband and I have been reading as much as possible, just trying to figure out how to help my son. We also can't really pinpoint what the problem is beyond speech. To be honest, I feel like we got lazy for a long time. We would turn on the tv as soon as we got home from daycare/work. We weren't engaging him like we should. (no, we weren't ignoring him but we thought he enjoyed the tv shows) I feel terrible guilt over this.
We have gone electronics/tv free for the last two weeks and I can see a difference in my son's attention at home. We are reading every night and he is once again pointing to things I ask him to point to. His daycare teachers say that he has been very focused, following directions and participating in class projects.
I have taken and retaken every autism assessment quiz I can find and every single one comes back as low risk. I know there is no cookie-cutter kid with autism but I just want to find out what's going on with him.
Do we contact a developmental pediatrician now or wait for the EI assessment? What can I expect at the evaluation???
Re: What's my next step?
You're lucky that you can get in that quickly! Here its 6-12 months, though I had my pedi call the office and she got her in within two. It's a pretty noninvasive appointment--they'll mostly have you go through an incredibly detailed history while they watch him in play, they'll do some testing which is mostly play based like puzzles and blocks, give you some sort of developmental delay dx, make sure he's getting the kind of therapies he needs, and say see you in six months.
They can, but at that young an age they probably wouldn't diagnose anything.
You're lucky that you can get in that quickly! Here its 6-12 months, though I had my pedi call the office and she got her in within two. It's a pretty noninvasive appointment--they'll mostly have you go through an incredibly detailed history while they watch him in play, they'll do some testing which is mostly play based like puzzles and blocks, give you some sort of developmental delay dx, make sure he's getting the kind of therapies he needs, and say see you in six months.
That was how my sons eval went. He was 20m (red flags at 18m appt). That was in June, he is 25m now as well, and the f/u is due in Dec. They didn't dx at his first eval, just labeled him as "at risk" which opened up help from therapists and such at his age.
BFP#2 2.5.11 (EDD 10.15.11) DS born 9.28.11
BFP#4 8.27.13 (EDD 5.6.14) DD born 4.23.14
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BFP#2 2.5.11 (EDD 10.15.11) DS born 9.28.11
BFP#4 8.27.13 (EDD 5.6.14) DD born 4.23.14
My Recipe Blog
~All AL'ers welcome~
I wouldn't give up based on one session. She likely was trying to get a feel for what kinds of activities would be motivating for him, seeing how he did with transitions and getting an idea of where his play skills are since therapy is play based. You say she didn't give you any input for at home, but did you ask for any?
You said you were going to stop until your ei Eval. Unfortunately, your ei Eval probably isn't going to give you much insight as to ways to help. If your child participates, its going to be a while and afterwards your kid is going to be done. They'll calculate the scores, give you the results and say whether he qualifies. A therapist who evaluates him for a bit isn't going to give much in the way do advice outside of anything you can find on google. His slp will be the one to give you more targeted advice to help. My advice would be just be patient with the process. Your kid is young.
The people who do the ei Eval are not necessarily going to be the therapists that work with her. You would get guidance from her therapists.