Preschool Screening Part 3

Lamb 2 spent a long time with the speech teacher during his preschool screening. That was the real reason I wanted him evaluated. Ram and I can understand most of what Lamb 2 says, but those who don't hear him every day can't understand most of what Lamb 2 says. He happened to be the last appointment of the day so the other teachers that finished evaluating the other children started to take down their chairs and pack up their supplies. They apologized to me for Lamb 2 taking so long. I said I didn't mind since that was the area that I wanted him to be evaluated the most.
The speech teacher spoke to me about his evaluation afterwards. He did fine in the basic evaluation of language and vocabulary. She was impressed that one time he spoke incorrectly and corrected himself correctly.
Articulation didn't go as well. She had the test divided into 5 or 6 areas by age. He missed 1 each in the first two areas. Then as he got closer to his actual age he missed every single word. I discussed this with my dad and he thought- so he's developing slower than other children in the area of speech. But from his evaluation, he didn't even get all the words correct that a 2 and 3 year old should be able to say. He didn't get ANY of the words correct that a 4 or 5 year old should be able to say.
We worked with this speech teacher before when Lamb 1 was a late talker. Her suggestion was that first we should run through a full speech evaluation with Lamb 2, not just the basic test that he took at the preschool screening. Get results from the formal hearing check he had less than a year ago. Full evaluation of language and vocabulary even though she doesn't expect any difficulty in this area, just to make sure that they don't miss anything. Of course the full evaluation of articulation. Of course sign all the paperwork to give the school permission to test and work with him.
She warned me that after all this testing he may not qualify for speech as his speech may not be bad enough. But she would like him tested and if he does qualify begin helping him now before his speech gets worse. If he qualifies then we will be responsible to take him to school once or twice a week for speech. If he doesn't qualify then she'll give us ideas how to work with Lamb 2 at home.
It was obvious to me after the preschool screening that when you commit to homeschooling, you are also committing to be the one responsible to set everything up to get your child evaluated in all areas. It would be so much easier to sign Lamb 2 up for preschool and the teachers would pull him out and evaluate him for all these skills during school time and then notify us of any difficulties and extra help they would give him. We are committed to homeschooling right now and we feel it is worth our extra work in this area.
Stay tuned to my blog to see if Lamb 2 qualifies for speech class.