Since this is Mikey's "baby book", I want to make sure that I document everything.---even those moments that may not be a huge deal but developmentally should be noted.
I brought Mikey in to work to have a PT check out his jumping since he is not yet getting 2 feet off the ground (and I know this is a 24 month old skill). Mikey met with my director on two different occasions. Over those two visits, Joanne noted that she had seen improvement in Mikey's skills and that I shouldn't be concerned. Even though he may not be jumping, all of his other movements appear to be "on track" and it is not impacting his daily functioning at home or in the community (playground, Eva's House, etc). Joanne did mention that I have someone look at M's language since he was VERY quiet during her sessions.
In Mikey's defense (related to his language) I believe that:
1) He is quite chatty with us at home--especially over the past few months. He mostly uses learned phrases for asking questions and longer sentences ("_______ are you?", "I want more ______ please!") and labels a variety of things. Mikey is not yet putting action words together or answering more abstract questions like "What did you do at Eva's House today?";
2) During Joanne's visits in the gross motor room, Mikey was totally consumed by all of the fun equipment (and he didn't have to share any of it!). When given the option to play with an adult stranger or play in a fun room, he picked playing in the fun room---therefore tuning everyone else out. He was jumping on the trampoline, going up the stairs, down the slide, crashing in the body pillows, etc. He could have cared less about who/what wanted to interact with him.....and frankly, I don't blame him;
3) In comparison to other kids his age, Mikey is definitely NOT the "talker" of the group. A lot of times we hang out with girls his age. They talk A LOT. I have noticed this for awhile but always looked at it as their strength. I categorized Mikey's strengths as his attention span and fine motor skills. Everyone has strengths and areas that they need to work on. This was how I viewed it. I knew he wasn't talking like others were but on the "Mikey scale", we were seeing improvement and therefore I wasn't overly concerned.
After our visit with Joanne, I was upset. After I was upset, I made a plan. The plan was to:
1) Get M's hearing checked. This is recommended for any child over two with a speech concern. It is purely just to rule everything out;
2) Call a speech-language pathologist and get her opinion on the situation;
3) Thanks to Eva, Mikey is allowed to attend "Eva's House Child Care" for three days a week for the month of December to work on social interaction and use of language with his peers (Eva does not think there is a problem with Mikey's language but was more than willing to help his frazzled Mommy).
This past Friday (12/16/11) Sofia (a colleague of mine) came for an informal speech-language assessment. We played lots of fun games and Mikey did lots of talking. Sofia's clinical opinion is that Mikey is on the lower side of average when it comes to his language. She feels he has all of the appropriate sounds but is just not using all of his words to communicate. He may feel pressured and want to say things perfectly and therefore is intimidated to say them until he feels completely confident. She gave us some strategies to work on and will be coming back in February for a follow-up visit. We always have the option at that point to refer Mikey to the public preschool program OR try outpatient speech services, if necessary.
For now we are taking it one day at a time and being more aware of what we say and how we communicate with Mikey. We know one day soon we will be asking ourselves, "Remember when Mikey hardly talked??".
