finding the right words

For the past four months, we've been working with the county school system to have Logan evaluated. We were interested to see if he might be eligible for any special services based on his expressive speech delay. Along the way, he's been evaluated by an occupational therapist, a speech-language pathologist, a child psychologist and a social worker.

Today we had our big meeting with the school system. Based on all of the evaluations, it really was no surprise to us that he does not meet their definitions for being a child with a disability. He has scored very high in all cognitive areas.

However, we're thrilled they did find him eligible for speech therapy services through the school system. At 2 1/2, he has pretty poor articulation and is only understood about 30% of the time. For reasons no one really understands, he has some issues with some sound omissions and errors. From what I understand, this is pretty common, especially with little boys his age.

I think a lot his frustration in life right now lies within the fact that he knows exactly what he wants and needs but when he tries to say it, the words come out wrong.

The speech services will start sometime in early April and will take place at Dylan's elementary school twice a week. I'm really hopeful this will help his articulation, and boost his confidence while easing his frustrations.

These speech services will be in addition to whatever community based preschool we enroll him, which will also likely be twice a week. We're going to have a busy fall! Dylan will be a big first grader, with more homework and projects than he has this year (which already seems like a lot sometimes).

I think this is the right thing for Logan. He’s come so far in the last year in so many ways. We just need to do everything we can to help him improve his speech so we can all understand him. He has a lot to say, we just can’t always understand what it is yet!