The Evaluation

We had our speech and nutrition evaluation this afternoon and three hours later, we have some answers.

First, the nutrition portion of the evaluation. The nutritionist was VERY supportive of extended breastfeeding, and Oliver's decision to tandem nurse once the sibling arrives. She mentioned nothing about weaning, and thought it was fantastic! I asked her about the milk issues, and she said pretty much that yea, we could be right, the sugars in milk (cooked out of yogurt and cheese) can upset the tummy at night but during the day the child is so distracted they don't notice. So, no milk still for the Oliver. She does want him to eat more calcium rich foods, so he will probably go back on Soy milk for dinner, and yogurt for snacks. I am really excited because she confirmed that for kids this age, fruits=veggies for the most part. So if your kid is a fruit lover but not so much with the green stuff, its okay, just to make sure that they get enough vitamin A. We also got a chart of nutrient rich foods which would be AWESOME to put on the fridge, if things stuck to our fridge, but I am sure it will just get shoved in a drawer somewhere. Sigh. She also suggested that since his snacks and lunch schedule is somewhat non-existent, we might try a more strict preschool like schedule to help when the baby comes. She said a lot of the time, kids will ask for food for attention when new babies are introduced and to nip it in the bud with a set schedule they are used to. He is 26ish pounds and 33" tall which puts him at 50%ish. Oliver enjoyed sitting in her "boat" (scale) and laying very very still for her measuring tool. Thus ended the nutritionist evaluation.

When the nutritionist left, two more people came to evaluate Oliver's speech and social development. There are two types of language, receptive and expressive. Receptive language is following requests, comprehension of vocabulary, listening skills, etc. Expressive language is the ability to talk back. After many many questions and tests (stacking cups, choosing the eating tool out of three objects, giving two commands that are unrelated, etc.) it was found that he was at a 3 year old level in regards to receptive language (!!!!!), but at a 20 month level in regards to expressive language. The three month delay he has doesn't qualify him for their program as he would have to lag behind at least 6 months for that, but they gave us some tips on how we can work with him. For instance, being very animated when we talk to him about words, not forcing him to repeat, and giving him words for the signs. They said if he doesn't start to learn 2 words a week within the next two months or so, we need to have them come out again. I can't imagine him all of a sudden talking, it blows my leetle mind! Of course, while they were here he said "mine", "this not that" and other phrases, so the evaluation was a bit skewed as to what we deal with on a daily basis. I believe Oliver is trying to have me committed.

He did score pretty low (18 months) on certain "self helping" skills. Such as getting dressed, getting undressed on his own (never has done this), potty communication (related to language), etc. He could have been signed up for the program for that, but I think we will just work on it more on our own. They gave us some ideas about how we can encourage him to be more self sufficient such as, pulling his pants half way up or down and encouraging him to do the rest himself. I chalk this lag up to me being terrified of walking into his room and seeing that he did some finger painting with his poop. Of course, as soon as they left, he took off his shirt and pulled down his pants, no joke.

Other milestones he reached today was talking on the phone with his grandmommy!! Well, he said "hi" and really really tried to say "banana" since he couldn't use both hands to sign it because he was holding the phone.