We got the official scores back from the PLS-4, which is a test that screens speech and language skills in children. Christian is testing at 26 months receptively and 29 months expressively. He is testing at and above age level, and we are SO proud of him.
One interesting point on this test is that most kids test better receptively than expressively. These test results definitely showed us some gaps in his receptive language that needed to be identified so we can work on them. We need to pay careful attention to his consistency in answering WH questions. When we ask a question, such as "Christian, what is Daddy doing?", he responds back "What's he doing?". We then need to ask him again, and he'll respond with an answer. Evidently, this is quite common in kids with hearing loss, and we're not surprised. We've pretty much trained Christian to repeat EVERYTHING. We also need to work a bit more on his pronouns, like he and she.
We also had our 6 month IFSP review, and Christian has met and exceeded all of our goals. We're now officially in our transition year, which prepares us for entrance into the public school system. While we do not plan to send Christian to our county's D/HOH preschool (look for another post on that later), we still would like to take advantage of the services the county provides once he turns 3. Our new goals help us get to our ultimate goal: Walking Christian down the street to our neighborhood elementary school for his first day of Kindergarten. We know that he can do it!
All in all, we are just amazed at the progress he has made. We know that these results are anything but typical for a kid who has only been implanted 9 months. We still have a long way to go, but we're off to an AMAZING start.
5 comments:
It just goes to show that with the proper therapy, these kids can do anything! I think that Christian being such a great hearing aid user has truly given him a head start, something that some kids, like Drew, never had because the aids were little benefit.
Just love the little guy! You know, he and Drew will start school the same year. I think we will probably be walking them to their school on the same day. Hard to believe!
Tina, that is just fantastic! You have a very smart little boy on your hands. Those are amazing results. Your hard work is really paying off!
I am really enjoying following along on his journey. He is a special one!
Yay for Christian!!! AND his AMAZING parents!!! Love you guys :) XOXO
That is so awesome! That is interesting about repeating what you say, because Nolan does the same thing. If we hold up a cow and say, "what is this?" he'll respond "Dish (this)." When we say, "it's a cow! The cow says, moo!" Then he'll say "cow. Moo." I didn't realize that a lot of kids with hearing loss did that!
Way to go Christian! Good work Mom and Dad :)
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