Early Intervention

We have been struggling with the idea of having Averie evaluated regarding her speech delay, wondering if it would work itself out on its own, but ultimately decided we were doing her a disservice not to explore all the options.


Averie is 20 months old and does not have any real words.  There is lots of baby babble and jibberish (which is beyond adorable), but we knew that she was not where she was supposed to be in that area, and recognized that the sooner we could get help for her, the more likely she was to be successful at catching up.


Yesterday, Kids On The Move (a provider of early intervention services) came to our home for Averie's evaluation.  Averie amazed us by performing different tasks for the therapist that we had never seen her do before!  It figures she would keep all these little skills under lock and key until what she deemed the right moment :P.  However, words were not among those "hidden" talents.


Averie is on target or ahead in every developmental area (gross and fine motor, receptive speech, etc.), except expressive speech.  Because she excels in the other areas and is only delayed in that one, her cumulative delay was found to be 17%.  KOTM requires a percentage of 18% or higher to diagnose a mild delay, but children are not eligible for services until they demonstrate a moderate delay.


It was difficult to pinpoint how I felt when I received that news.  On the one hand, of course I was thrilled that she was meeting or exceeding expectations in every other developmental area, even demonstrating some skills that would typically be well beyond her age.  On the other, I wanted to get the ball rolling with speech therapy as soon as possible.


The plan going forward is to continue working on her speech at home and we have also begun teaching her sign language.  She picked up "more" and "all done" within the first couple days of starting, so I am confident that she will learn more signs and we will be able to communicate with much less frustration all around until her verbal speech develops further.


Averie's pediatrician refers children with speech delays for therapy at 21 months (which will be next week!), so that is on the horizon.  The fact that she is only delayed in one area bodes well for her :).