Opus 291 - Testing

A couple of weeks ago I got a call from the State-run Early Intervention program saying they were following up on things (whatever that means) and asked if we'd like to have Lissa and Joshua tested to see if they qualify for early intervention. I really didn't think they would qualify (we just had their well child appointments and the doctor had no concerns), but it never hurts to check, so I said yes.

On Friday, the nurse came and checked their hearing, vision, motor skills, etc. They passed with flying colors.

The therapist came today and did some standardized testing with them. I don't believe that standardized testing is effective in telling you much - something I'd gladly explain to you, but I doubt you're interested and I don't blame you :) - but it was interesting to see what they did. She did things like: show the child a skill (like building some blocks), then ask the child to do the same thing. Sometimes the instructions were pretty detailed, "Put the block in the cup. Now turn the cup over and put the block on the cup." She also had some pictures where she would have the kids identify the objects that were the same or name the objects. It was funny when she got to the pages with the letters because the kids weren't interested in finding the same letter, they just wanted to tell her all of the letter names.

They keep doing the testing until the child gets to 7 things that they can't do. Lissa and Joshua went much further than the therapist has ever gone. The poor lady wasn't sure what was next and had to keep looking things up since she'd never been that far through the testing. She said that by the time she got to the 7 "no's" they were in skills that are normal for a 3-4 year old.

One of the most interesting things for me was to watch Joshua. He doesn't get as much opportunity to show us what he knows because Lissa is always jumping in an answering things before he can. It was fun to see what he knows - I was impressed!

So, although I don't fully trust standardized testing, it was nice to see that my kids are doing well. You always worry as a mom (probably more as I first time mom) - you want to make sure your kids are doing well developmentally. Maybe having preemies makes you worry more, but I would bet that all moms have the same worries, no matter the circumstances of their kid's birth.

I don't think the kids will qualify for any early intervention, but I'm glad we got the testing done. It was free and it's always nice to know. And if they do qualify for anything, I'll be even more grateful that we did this! I think this is a spectacular program and I'm glad they have it. There are many kids out there that have struggles (for many different reasons) and it's so good that there is a program for them to get the help they need.