I realized that I never updated the blog after Hammie's last Early Intervention evaluation for speech. Well, it turns out that Hammie no longer qualifies for speech therapy through EI since their new guidelines (thanks to the crappy economy and resulting budget cutbacks) require children to have a 30% delay instead of a 25% delay. This may not sound like much of a difference unless you happen to be the parent of a child like Hammie whose expressive language tested at the 13 month level, meaning he has a 25% delay. If he had tested at the 12 month level he would have had a 30% delay. Frustrating.

I give his speech therapist a ton of credit because she did everything within her power to help him to qualify. She didn't give him credit for saying any words at all during his evaluation (even though she knows what words he can say) and any area that was questionable (does he make 5 consonant noises?) she failed him in. Still, just the fact that he will point and gesture for what he wants and the fact that he babbles were enough to bump him out of the 12 month level.

I was pretty upset that he didn't qualify since I haven't felt that Hammie is any more advanced, or making any more progress, than Fraser did at his age and obviously Fraser will be in the program until he turns 3 and they chuck him out. Fraser will also be getting speech therapy at the public school after he turns 3. Luckily the leader of the toddler group at EI that Hammie is in has agreed to let him stay on for at least a few months as a peer model and she can help me determine whether I should have Hammie re-evaluated in the fall if he doesn't seem to be making sufficient progress.

That said, I got out our DVD that has videos of Fraser from about the time Hammie was born (meaning that Fraser was the same age then as Hammie is now) and I realized that Hammie does seem to have a few more words than Fraser did at that time (Witness Hammie's "bye bye" in the video). More importantly though, Hammie seems interested in mimicking the words and noises that other people make, something Fraser was never interested in (and actually still really isn't). So, I am going to be optimistic and hope that Hammie's speech will continue to progress such that he will catch up with his peers in relatively short order.

Speaking of speech therapy, Fraser and his speech therapist had a pretty funny conversation yesterday morning. Fraser wanted to move one of the dining room chairs over in front of the window where it usually belongs before he climbed up in his seat and Kim, his speech therapist, was sitting at the table waiting for him. After he moved the chair Kim said "Wow, you are really strong! You must have really big muscles!" then she leaned over and squeezed his bicep. Fraser looked a little confused and then said something back that Kim couldn't quite make out. She asked me what he said and he repeated himself "Cars have big muscles. Old cars have muscles. Muscles make cars loud!" It took me a minute and then I answered "Well, yes, muscle cars can be very loud and they are old. That is true." Kim was hysterical. "Does your husband like old cars?"

Now the truth it that Andy does like muscle cars in the way that I like the ballet. I enjoy it and I've checked it out a few times, but I don't exactly discuss it on a regular basis. I therefore think it is hysterical that Andy probably mentioned that some loud, old car was a muscle car at some point and Fraser had carefully tucked away that term in his brain. It really does make you think very carefully about what you say in front of him, since you never know what he will retain and when or where he will decide to share some choice piece of information you provided.