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Update on Teagan

It's been a while since I've updated on Teagan's progress with her therapy and such. At this point in her life (at age 21 months), she is now only receiving speech therapy along with her weekly visits with Crystal, her Early Interventionist. She was re-evaluated last week and on Tuesday Susan, her speech therapist, and I went over the results.

When Teagan was first assessed last December she scored in the 90s on both receptive and expressive skills. Average is anywhere between 85-115, and a true "delay" is below 85 and "advanced" is above 115. She qualified because of her eating difficulties and aversion to textured foods (she was 15 months old and still on pureed baby foods). Susan not only worked on her speech, but did lots of work with her in terms of getting Teagan to accept foods and getting over her texture aversion.

When Teagan was assessed last week, her receptive score was 115 but her expressive was 86; quite a significant difference. She should be saying at least 50 words but is only saying about 20 on a regular basis. She tries to imitate words by changing the inflection and pitch of her voice, which is great, but what she says is completely unintelligible. Receptively, Teagan understands so much and in fact, showed understanding of skills that are difficult for kids to grasp, especially at not quite 2 years old. For instance, the concept of quantities: one, some, all. Susan was even a little surprised that Teagan understood what she was asking so she repeated that part of the assessment later on just to be sure the results were accurate. Again, Teagan mastered the task!

Although Teagan's scores do not fall in the "delay" range yet (the test age range is for 18-24 months so once Teagan turns 2 and is reassessed, then she will qualify) we are going to continue with speech because there is such a big gap between her receptive understanding and expressive speech. Ideally both of her scores would be about the same and clearly they are not.

I am thankful for the work that Susan has done with Teagan because not only has she helped Teagan in terms of her eating capability, but she has given TJ and I an opportunity to communicate with Teagan through sign. Signing was something I did with the others but not to the extent that we have done with Teagan. Teagan signs more words than she says and when she wants something that she doesn't know the sign for, she gets frustrated at not having a means to express herself. Susan, through signing, has opened up Teagan's world for her and really helped Teagan to have a better quality of life.

Teagan's Vocabulary:
more
cu(p)
baby
bye
hi
ea(t)
ma-ma
da-da
knee
me
mine
coo-coo (cookie)
ha(t)
eye
mou(th)
bubble
ball
ca(r)
dirty

Teagan's signs:
baby
more
help
open
all done
milk
I love you
sit
up
in (put in)
dirty
mine
ball
bath
shoes
apple
juice
cup
eat
cookie
cracker
cat
girl

Comments

Martha Compton said…
Terra- I know you will continue to see amazing growth with Teagan working with Susan. We just did C's re-eval and in one year she went from a 10 month level in receptive language to 2 year, 8 months and 11 month level in expressive language to 2 years, 9 months! Susan is a miracle worker!
Martha Compton said…
oh, and her standard scores went from a 76 in receptive and 83 in expressive to 114 in both areas. Keep in mind that a year ago we were still adjusting her age for her prematurity so back then she was compared to peers 3 months younger. We didn't do that this time so the difference in standard scores would be even bigger!!
Chelsea Teeple said…
Terra
Glad to hear that Teagan is doing better with eating. It had to be frustrating for her to not be able to eat the same foods as her siblings. I'm glad that her receptive language has improved and that she is learning more ways to express herself. She's very blessed to have parents so dedicated to working with her and praying over her. We'll continue to pray for progress! Miss you and love you guys! :-)

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