Speech Therapy Graduate!

I could not be more thrilled to be able to say that Russell has been exited from speech therapy! 

I had discussed with our speech therapist my belief that Russell just no longer needed the services, considering how many people we meet – strangers – are impressed with his speech.  So on Friday morning, for his weekly speech appointment, Miss Jill (our AMAZING speech therapist) brought her formal evaluation with her and tested him.  Bless his heart, he sat there for 45 minutes, completely still and mostly compliant – although at the end I had to bribe him to finish.  He had to sit there for so long because they have to get 5 in a row wrong before the test is considered over.  In fact, he was doing so well that she gave him 4.5-5 year old questions before he finally got 5 wrong in a row!

In order to qualify for speech therapy, his score would have had to be a 78 or lower.  During the evaluation that qualified him for speech in Feb 2011, his expressive language score was a 69 (although I don’t remember is receptive score).  On Friday, his expressive score was 110 and his receptive score was 114!  Amazing!  Thank You, Lord!

In Feb 2011, we were ecstatic when Russell started saying “hi” and “hop” – we were so relieved he was saying something.  Now, he is one of the more talkative kids we know.

Good job, Russell!  You worked so hard and it paid off!