Getting our Moneys Worth

I took FFM in for a developmental assessment today. FFM was a bit slow to talk back in the day and our pediatrician in Perth suggested that we check in with a speech therapist when we returned to the US. She proposed waiting since the wait for one in Australia would put us at our return date anyway. In the meantime his vocabulary exploded and while he's still sometimes hard to understand (when he's tired or excited) his new pediatrician thought while he probably didn't really need it we should go ahead and do it. She's actually a pretty good doc and said, well, if his doctor who knew him well thought he should be screened, let's do it. Plus it's done through a program associated with the school district so let's use that program all your tax dollars go to pay for.

The assessment covers the whole she-bang, from speech, to cognitive ability, to gross and fine motor skills. It involved lots of paperwork and annoying stuff beforehand on my part (I mentioned it's funded by taxes, see?) but all in all seemed well worth it. We learned a lot today from three therapists that all sat down on the floor and played with FFM.

Turns out his speech is just fine, he's right where he should be, and even using some sounds ahead of schedule. All that practice we've been doing has paid off. We got some exercises to do at home so he can learn to say 'F', it's a consonant that normally comes later in the scheme of speech but since it's the first letter of his name the therapist thought he/we might like him to be able to say it a little sooner.

His cognitive abilities are great, too. The psychologist had nothing but great things to tell us, that FFM's way ahead of schedule, when she described what she found. It made me sit up a little straighter and feel those millions of questions we've fielded and thousands of stories we've read and hundreds of games we've played are worth it.

Oh, and gross motor. Well, he's got some work to do. He's cautious. He'll do the skills but will compensate. Hmmm. Probably my fault, I say. He doesn't like to go up onto things without holding on to something (like stairs, stepping over a toy). And he'll jump with two feet off the ground but only if he's doing something funny with his arms (I missed this part, they were out in the hall). And he's a bit timid (physically, not socially). I've noticed this at playgrounds recently, even more so than when we were in Oz, when Mac and Lexie would go charging all over play structures and FFM wouldn't be quite so sure about some new part of a playground.

So we'll go back again and they'll play some more. Since he's been 100% healthy, i.e. no chronic ear infections, no one's really very concerned at this point, it'll be interesting to see what happens. I'm glad to see our tax dollars at work.