Miss Independent

Ahhh, today was the big evaluation day. Our forms were filled out, our outfits chosen and the address to the center carefully typed into the GPS. As we drove to the appointment, I was filled with both hope and fear.

Lily was overjoyed as we arrived at the center. The waiting room was filled with lots of cool toys and Lily was crawling through tunnels and throwing balls as we waited. The caseworker soon came to get us and brought us back to another room with toys. Then the "cooking" began. Lily stirred the pots and moved them around the burners on the pretend kitchen as the adults talked. She said over and over something that sounded like "Cooking, What's that cooking?".

I had pre-filled out a questionnare and when the evaluators came in, they engaged Lily in activities like coloring and putting a very small sprinkle into a little container. They demonstrated feeding a babydoll and to my surprise Lily also took the spoon and "fed the baby". She even wiped her face (and when I told her "good job" she came and wiped mine too).

They asked me lots of questions about things Lily could do physically, about what words she was using, about dressing herself and about following directions.

At the end I was given her scores. The "norm" was said to be in the 100 range. Lily fell into or above that norm in every category but one. A score below 78 in any category qualified her for services. In the area of "receptive language" Lily scored a 76. This means she is not just below average, but below the norm for being able to follow direction and demonstrating that she knows what you are saying to her. She qualifies for services because of this.

Unfortunately, it took us so long to get and appointment that by the time we move in February Lily would just be STARTING with services. The dr. told us that she would have made the recommendation for a re-evaluation in 3 months anyways.

In the meantime, we have lots of things we can work on at home. We can demonstrate following instructions, we can challenge Lily to follow what we say instead of just doing things for her (like "give me the bowl" or "throw that away".)

There are 2 possible reasons for this, either 1) Lily is having problems processing the things we are saying to her or 2) She knows what we are saying and is just too independent to want to do them. I think it may be a combination of the 2. Lily demonstrated the 2nd reason very well though as we were leaving. The dr. asked her for the spoon she was holding and Lily looked at her and grunted and hid the spoon behind her back as if to say "no way! this is mine!". haha.