round 1

well, leave it to me to enroll my child in an over-achieving pre-school! i woke up this morning with a nervous stomach and was anxious about how this morning's evaluation would go, but really, i knew brayden would waltz right in, give a big smile and win the room with his sweet demeanor. AND HE DID! before i get into the evalutation i want to share this: ironically, in the past 1-2 weeks he has not been singing or reciting the abc's quite as frequently as before. rather, he's been SPELLING words out of the clear blue (mom, dad, neely, brayden, stop, cat, hat, etc...), rearranging letters to make words (sight words mostly), and sounding words out when reading...yes! reading! he is totally beginning to read! and each time we read to him, he stops us mid-sentence and says "what's that say? what's that say?" very into words... i'm beginning to think he has a photographic memory because he has practically memorized 3 books, 2 of which are dr. seuss, and is now into puzzles...interlocking kind. he has a few that are 12-24 pieces and has aced those, so i bought him a 48 piece wooden interlocking (jigsaw) puzzle at target the other day with no guide. he's already aced it, no problem and looks at me like "now what?" his speech has improved in that he is saying things he hasn't said before, such as "good idea, mom" when I suggested popcorn as a snack the other day, but is still communicating mostly in 3-4 word phrases, not quite full sentences.

on to the evaluation: could not have gone better! honestly! we are just so, so grateful they were willing to squeeze us in!! we were present in the room the whole time. brayden did some activities and interacted with a speech pathologist while chris and i talked with the head of pre-school services for the county. while they are professionals, they are not doctors and there was not a school psychologist there, so no official diagnosis has been made, but they did give us their thoughts and initial impressions and make a referral for a full evaluation to be done in august. by their interaction with him they did not think we were dealing with autism or asperger's, although some of our verbalized concerns would signal red flags in that direction. they did mention hyperlexia, which some believe falls on the autism spectrum. Hyperlexia is basically "an above normal ability to read, coupled with a below normal ability to understand spoken language" (autism key.com). it is also associated with a fascination with either letters or numbers and learning to speak by either rote memorization or heavy repitition. both kristi and julie commented though, that they do think he's "truly brilliant," but that there is a speech barrier (typically with asperger's there is no communication barrier.) he either knows what he wants to say and can't get it out or doesn't have the words at all. personally, i think this is why he has resorted to singing to abc's, because it's comforting and yields praise and confidence. the communication block creates both social and emotional frustration. they want to run both an IQ and a verbal/spacial capacity test on him, thinking both are very high. they did recommend speech therapy, but in order to have the official order for speech therapy services, he needs to go through the full evaluation in august. speech therapy would be 2x a week at our local elementary school on the days he's not in pre-school. when asked about pre-school for next year, i wanted to make sure we were not going to be a part of any of their programs and she assured me definitely not, that he was too high-functioning. she did, however, let me know that the school where he's been attending has a reputation for setting standards that are above and beyond the normal range of development for pre-school children. awesome! leave it to me to set high goals for my children! so she gave us some names of pre-schools that incorporate more play-time into their schedules while providing a stimulating, challenging atmosphere. above all, he needs to be in a place where he can THRIVE and where he feels comfortable and can grow and be himself!! and where mama can feel confident about the care he's getting!!

thank you, thank you for your prayers!!!! we are already filling out paperwork for the august evaluation so we are not put on a waiting list. then i will be researching which pre-school to enroll him in..fun, fun! we will keep you posted, but for now, we will rest and enjoy today's goodness, knowing that he is created in the very image of God and he is our precious, wonderful son. we are blessed to be his parents!