A shocking phone call

Yesterday I was talking to someone about Natalie's abilities so the person could understand what special considerations Natalie needs for swimming lessons this summer.  After I described Natalie, the person repeated back to me what she understood (and what she wanted to know about Natalie for her planning purposes): I told her Natalie had expressive speech of about 2.5 years of age and receptive speech of about 3 years of age, and that she has gross motor control of about 2.5 years of age.  These were my estimates, based on how she compares to my almost-2.5-year old, Konrad.  If I'm really honest, Konrad has much better gross (and fine) motor control than Natalie, but I didn't want to be so exact in my estimates that Natalie wouldn't qualify for the swimming lessons (for kids 3 and up):  in the pool, she's a lot different (better) than on land!

How timely that I got a phone call from Natalie's speech therapist today!  Miss Becky said she gave Natalie a standardized expressive vocabulary test, where she showed Natalie a picture and Natalie had to say what she saw.  Becky said she scored at the 3 year old level!  She was very excited and so was I...when we think about where Natalie was just a year ago in her speech, it really is incredible the progress she's made.

Becky said she showed her pictures of things like boat, cat, hamburger, airplane, dog, scissors, etc, and Natalie got them all right.  The three that she couldn't count as correct were:  mermaid (Natalie said "Ariel", which Becky knew was a good answer, but she couldn't count it), computer (Natalie called it a "TV" because of the screen) and telephone (it was an old picture of a push-button telephone, which Natalie called a "computer"...so Becky grabbed a cell phone and asked Natalie what it was and Natalie said "telephone" so Becky counted it as correct).

I asked Becky if she'd tested Natalie's receptive language (because I just had this conversation with someone yesterday!) and she said she hadn't, but she thought it might not score as well as Natalie's expressive because of the type of test it is:  Becky would say the word, then Natalie would have to find the correct choice among four pictures.  I can see where this would be hard for Natalie, because sometimes she has a hard time following a line of pictures and pointing.  But just this morning I was asking Natalie to hand me a "green crayon" and she handed me the correct color from a group of 15 crayons...so maybe she would do ok. That's another area where I'm excited...Natalie is starting to get her colors right.  She has more success if I ask her to hand me the "green crayon" than if I ask "What color is this crayon?"...then she's likely to say the wrong color.

Anyway, Becky and I talked more about her progress and I reiterated that I think the Omega-3 chewy vitamins Natalie takes give her that extra 5% so she can focus and learn better...I notice when I've forgotten to give them to her that she doesn't seem as "with it" (like last week) as she does when she takes them.

We're so amazed at Natalie's progress!  Go Natalie!