Tuesday was a busy busy day - a lot of transporting. In the morning Corrina had school and Rene had gymnastics. While we were at gymnastics Hank played with another girl's Fisher Price school bus - he LOVED it and did not want to give it up. He sobbed when I took it away from him when we left :-(
We picked up Corrina at 11:30, then Rene had a special afternoon session of preschool - 12:30 to 2:30 - to make up for the many school days the PK4s have missed from school closings/delays from the snow.

Wednesday Rene did not have school because of ...what? maybe the 1 inch of new snow or the severely cold winds (gusting to 50 mph). I'm not really sure why they had a 2-hour delay. But Hank had his speech evaluation. Hank had his speech eval by the speech therapist and it was really very interesting. She just did a naturalistic observation rather than a test (since he was just tested last month), and she did a good job at pointing out to me what she was noticing and why it was important.
Basically she said his receptive language is at about 24 months (he's 20 months) and his expressive language is about 12 months. The bottom line is that she thinks his delays are due to the ear infections and nothing more serious, but that he definitely should get speech therapy to help him catch up and acquire the foundations of language that he missed as a baby.

She said the sounds he is making are typical of 9-12 months (mostly vowels, and the first several consonants that babies usually learn). She said he seems to be transitioning right now from the "jargoning" stage to the acquisition of words. Jargoning is when they make sounds that sound like words, but are not real words. (what I would call gibberish). She saw him doing that a lot and she said it's something babies usually do at 9-12 months, and that it's basically practicing stringing sounds together and learning conversational tones.

She said right now we shouldn't worry about HOW he's saying things (he says "bup" for cup and that is fine for now) - she said not to worry about articulation until about age 3. Right now the focus should be on increasing his expressive vocabulary (he's got 7 words right now) and acquiring more sounds (he has 4 vowel sounds and 6 consonants).

She said things that help are:
- using a lot of songs (she said to sing about everything we do - that it's often more effective than talking, and she especially thinks fingerplays are effective)
- make an effort to talk about everything we do - she said when you actualy watch families you find that some of them are doing great things together but don't talk about what they are doing
- limit background noise (she was pleased we didn't have a tv in the living area and said it's a big issue for some of the kids she sees)
- and finally she said play is also important. She said learning to play with toys sets up the foundations for speech and language. She gave the example of play food - when you play with play food you are setting up a storyline even if you aren't saying it (I put down a plate for me and one for you. Put an apple on my plate, put a banana on your plate. We both eat). She said when children don't play in a way that "tells a story" (her example was if they just stack up all the tea party stuff in a pile) it is often a red flag that their "inner" language may not be strong and may lead to language difficulties.

She said does not recommend waiting to see if kids catch up on their own if they have a delay. She said at this age it is really critical to address delays because without the foundations of speech and language they cannot progress. One nice thing she said was that he seems really bright, and his receptive language is strong.