Evaluating Dexter

So 4 people showed up for Dexter's speech evaluation:

• Speech Therapist (totally polished young woman with a rock the size of an acorn on her finger who rolled up in a brand new BMW)
• Speech Therapy Student (totally unpolished, very sweet)
• Socioemotional Developmental Therapist (a foreign man in his mid-forties - accent seemed Swedish? - who was very warm and engaging)
• The Intake Coordinator (the women from the south side who had met with us the previous week)

Then there was Ben, Dexter, My Bologna, and me. We all sat in a circle on the floor in our front room and the therapists pulled out all sorts of objects: toys, pictures, books, puzzles, etc. Dexter was in fine form. Right before they arrived, he saw the garbage truck come down the alley - this is always very exciting for him - and he couldn't stop telling everyone, "Green garbage truck in alley!" Obviously, everyone was looking at as Ben and me like, "What's wrong with you people? Why are you wasting our time?" We knew right off the bat that he wasn't going to qualify for the state's speech therapy services but they went ahead with the whole evaluation.

Evaluation highlights included:

The student giving Dexter a teddy bear and a cup and asking him if he could give the teddy bear a drink. He promptly did. Then she gave him a little blanket and asked if he could put the teddy bear to bed. He put the teddy bear down on its back and covered him with the blanket, just its little head popping out (I was surprised by this because Dexter doesn't sleep with a blanket but I guess he's seen enough pictures of sleeping babies with blankets in his books to know). Then Dexter got up and went into the other room, got a Kleenex from the box, and came back and wiped the teddy bear's nose! Everyone was laughing. We explained that Dexter had been sick with a runny nose the past couple of weeks so we wipe his nose when goes to bed.

When the student gave Dexter a few Puffs, he knew to eat them. He even asked for, "More cookies".

The developmental therapist "played" lots of games with Dexter. Dexy easily completed the shape sorting and block stacking tasks. When the therapist gave Dexter blocks of certain colors and asked him to put them in the bucket of the same color, he did so. When the therapist gave him a green block and asked him to put it in the green bucket (and there was no green bucket), Dexter looked at the block, looked at the buckets, looked at the therapist and said, "No green."

When the therapist asked Dexter to do a task he had never done before, Dexter tried but couldn't figure it out. The therapist took the "game" back and did it while Dexter watched then gave it back to Dexter. Dexy sat and worked at the task until he figured it out 9and it didn't take long).

Dexter said all his colors, many objects, and correctly answered most questions. He stayed engaged and cooperative the whole time. The therapists concurred that Dexter was at and above age level for everything and did not qualify for the early intervention program. The developmental therapist said that he could tell that Dexter was loved and that he is secure in knowing that he is loved. It brought tears to my eyes. Ben and I couldn't have been more proud of our little guy and kind of proud of ourselves.