Rolling and Talking

Piper rolled over for the first time on Tuesday and has done it several times since! It was especially nice when she rolled over for the Physical Therapist who was here yesterday (for Morgan). Nice performance!

So, Wednesday a Speech Therapist, Physical Therapist and Teacher came to our house to do an evaluation of Morgan for Early Intervention. To bring everyone up to speed, at Morgan's 15 month well baby appointment the pediatrician was concerned about her verbal communication development. She fell in a borderline area, not way behind, but a little behind. Basically she's supposed to be putting together some phrases (maybe not full sentences) and really use her words to express her wants and needs. She uses some words ("please" and "down" most often), but when she gets upset she just yells instead of trying to communicate what exactly she wants.

We decided to wait until closer to her 2 year appointment to do any further evaluation. At one of Piper's early appointments I obtained the questionnaire that they use at Morgan's 2-year appointment so I could determine where she was at...and she still fell in a borderline area. I decided it wouldn't hurt to contact Early Intervention to have a full evaluation. Early Intervention is a program that is run (in our area) by the Spokane Regional Health District. They provide services for children with "special needs" from birth to 3 years old. Not that I think of Morgan as a child with "special needs," but they provide some helpful services if your child is either slightly or more severely behind developmentally.

The therapists put Morgan though some exercises and asked me a lot of questions. The speech therapist called me later in the day at let me know that Morgan "just" qualified for speech therapy (apparently 25% behind), so we will start some weekly sessions in January. I'm pretty sure Morgan will catch up to her age group soon and especially when she starts her first preschool class next fall, but I will appreciate any help the therapist can give us and so we can learn how to help her along with her communication.

I haven't heard back from the other therapists yet, but they are moving offices next week. They said if she qualifies in one area she can get therapy in all areas, so we will wait and see what they say.