Evaluation Day!

That means that our ST came with her materials to evaluate Carver in his receptive speech (what he understands) and his expressive speech (what he can communicate to others). She'll bring the results back next week. She had him point to things in her book and it was really interesting to see how well he did identifying things UNTIL she got to a page and said, "what do we use to watch a movie?" and he was supposed to point to the TV or "what does Mommy use to cook dinner?" for a pan. He might have been tired, but he wasn't getting those at all. I wonder why. Identifying big and little is also nearly impossible for him.

I also made a list of the words he says, both for the words themselves and an idea of which sounds he makes. I think he's at about 50-60 words, but I keep remembering other words, too. Lots of those he signs, as well, and lots of them are words only Derek and I understand. I get excited about our growing list and then remember occasionally that he very rarely puts any of those words TOGETHER (just bye-bye + word sometimes). We still have a long road ahead of us, but I love hearing Carver's words and his inflection in particular.

He's trying to dress himself right now. He holds his foot with his hand to put it in his shorts. It's so interesting to watch, adorable and heart-wrenching at the same time. It's just so hard for him to tell his foot where to go that he tries to help it out. We can't help but be excited for all these little signs of progress!

Carver is really interested in colors and said "orange" today during therapy. I'm excited that he's understanding that there are names for the colors that he sees. He also LOVES the Letter Factory movie. It's big on the list for his birthday in October. He sees letters now and says "ck, ck, ck."

And how's this for cool? Carver's experience with being evaluated last fall and not qualifying, then qualifying in the spring in 5 areas made them rethink their evaluation process. Children's Therapy Center has changed their evaluation and training because of him and a couple other kiddos like him! good for them, good for Carver!