Back in July I wrote how I took BabyGirl into our favorite Autism medical center for her sibling study evaluation. She excels at gross motor skills (we knew she did), but she is a bit more behind in expressive speech. It’s been over a month, and I’ve yet to see any real progress with her expressive speech. (She demonstrates understanding or receptive language much more than she communicates).
We’ve decided that rather than wait until the 18 month evaluation, we’re going to contact the Early Education program in our area and have her evaluated. I know from our previous experience with Acroboy it can take a while to get the evaluations set up. By the time I had Acroboy evaluated, he started talking A LOT. He still had a verbal delay, but it wasn’t significant enough to warrant him receiving services.
Baby Girl is non-verbal (Mama, Dada, baba, and uh-oh make up the sum of her vocabulary). She is also showing more and more pickiness with foods and textures. I’ve noticed her getting picky about the temperature of the water when we wash her hands too. There is a limited range at which we wash, or she starts crying.
She is retreating more and more into herself when she gets overwhelmed. It reminds me very much of how her oldest brother was. Back then I thought it was just “cute”.
We have the first of the evaluations set up in a couple of weeks. I am not sure if I am jumping the gun. Am I worrying unnecessarily? Friends have regaled me with stories of family members who didn’t talk much until they were 3 and then went on the lead “normal” lives. What if I wait like I did with her brother, will she become verbal and then not qualify because she’s not “enough” behind? It’s a tough conundrum for us. In the end we decided we would start the process and see where it leads. She may or may not qualify for services. Either way I’ll continue to work with her the best way I know how, and I’ll know I’ve been doing all I can to give my baby the best start possible.