lilbunnygirl
11-18-2009, 09:37 AM
Well, I had made an appointment with FSU's First Words program for last week, but when I called them back the next day to change the time, they told me they'd been about to call me because Cash was too young for their program which starts at 3. What part of "I have a two and a half year old son" and "his birthday is 4-24-07" did they not hear? Anyhow, they recommended me to a different service for younger children, so I started that process.
They were very helpful and said an evaluator would actually come to my house, which I appreciated since Cash would be a lot more likely to act like himself and use his normal level of speech at home than in an office environment. The lady said I'd be assigned a case worker who would call me to coordinate care.
So that took like 2 weeks, they had my phone number wrong, etc... The case worker called me monday and asked me the communication questions on the ASQ for 30 months. I've been taking the ASQs (ages & stages questionnaires about Cash's development in communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving & personal/social) since Cash was 2 months old so I knew his score was 45 of 60 on the 30 month one. But what I didn't know was that that meant he was too good for them to provide services. A child has to be below the baseline (35) in one area or they can't help. And Cash has always scored perfectly in the other areas except sometimes personal/social again because of the limited talking, but even there his score was too high for them to do anything.
So all that for nothing! She said if I wanted to take him to a speech therapist on my own dime for an evaluation, that would be the only way I could get services, or if he is still behind when he turns three, I could go back to FSU's First Words program because they deal more with articulation and making sentences etc... but that because his scores are so high in all areas, she really wouldn't worry and just let him talk in his own time
Since we started this whole process of looking into getting services, Cash has learned about 20 new words and has started to use a few 2 word phrases, so we may be fine on our own. My pediatrician has 5 kids and million grandkids and he said one of his daughter's sons was late to talk so he referred her to speech therapy and in the 3 weeks between when she made the appointment and when the appointment was, he just broke out in sentences out of nowhere. So 'm thinking we'll just wait for now and see what happens.
They were very helpful and said an evaluator would actually come to my house, which I appreciated since Cash would be a lot more likely to act like himself and use his normal level of speech at home than in an office environment. The lady said I'd be assigned a case worker who would call me to coordinate care.
So that took like 2 weeks, they had my phone number wrong, etc... The case worker called me monday and asked me the communication questions on the ASQ for 30 months. I've been taking the ASQs (ages & stages questionnaires about Cash's development in communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving & personal/social) since Cash was 2 months old so I knew his score was 45 of 60 on the 30 month one. But what I didn't know was that that meant he was too good for them to provide services. A child has to be below the baseline (35) in one area or they can't help. And Cash has always scored perfectly in the other areas except sometimes personal/social again because of the limited talking, but even there his score was too high for them to do anything.
So all that for nothing! She said if I wanted to take him to a speech therapist on my own dime for an evaluation, that would be the only way I could get services, or if he is still behind when he turns three, I could go back to FSU's First Words program because they deal more with articulation and making sentences etc... but that because his scores are so high in all areas, she really wouldn't worry and just let him talk in his own time
Since we started this whole process of looking into getting services, Cash has learned about 20 new words and has started to use a few 2 word phrases, so we may be fine on our own. My pediatrician has 5 kids and million grandkids and he said one of his daughter's sons was late to talk so he referred her to speech therapy and in the 3 weeks between when she made the appointment and when the appointment was, he just broke out in sentences out of nowhere. So 'm thinking we'll just wait for now and see what happens.