Today was Isabel's early childhood screening that needs to be completed before she starts kindergarten. Our school district likes to do it after they turn 3.5, which she isn't yet but I asked if there was an open spot because she is less than a month from being 3.5 and I figured it would be much easier to do if I was still pregnant rather than having a 6 month old with me. Our district tests twice a year, so the next test will be in April (which we don't need to do now.)
Some comments & interesting things about each area:
Developmental - When asked to tell about a button, she offered up several things and at the end said "You use it to make shirts and cafts" (not pronouncing the "r"). The teacher asked her to repeat that, which she did. And then turned to me for clarification and told her she said crafts and then commented that I was wondering if she would say something about using button for crafts because just last week we made a craft (puppets) with buttons. For this one they have different scores based on how old they are in their 3's & 4's. The older they are the higher they had to score and she scored better than she would have had to if she was in her 4's.
Height/Weight - 85% for height (yes, that has slowed, but is still tracking to be about 5'9-5'11) and weight is 75% (which is where she has been all along, although she muct be getting more muscle because she looks like she has thinned out even though she has still gained some.) Everything looks good.
Hearing - When the clinician described the test to her and how she would raise her hands for beeps, Isabel told her this, "I have a smoke alarm in my room. And there is one outside my room. I have a smoke alarm inside and outside my room." The clinician, was like, "Uh-huh. That's good." I knew what Isabel was thinking so I commented, "Are you telling her this because the smoke alarm beeps like this test." And Isabel responded enthusiatically "Yes!" Hearing test was perfect, she even heard the last beep which was supposed to be barely audible & didn't need to be heard to pass the test.
Vision - I was annoyed that one of the symbols they had to identify wasn't really anything, but they go with whatever the child says it is. Being able to identify the symbol with the name they assigned it was the purpose of the test. I was also a little annoyed that when they came to the really small lines they asked, "Can you read that or is it too small?" She's a smart girl and was bored with this test already since they were doing both eyes & then each one individually, so she said it was too small and of course that ended the test. She didn't need to identify anything on that line to have good vision and pass the test. I was just annoyed that the clinician opened it up to allowing a kid to get out of trying like that. She had an eye test when she turned three that was at an optician and her eye sight was good there, so I was not concerned.
Speech - She passed this just fine. She has a couple of sounds that she struggled to pronouce in some words, the r sound & ch sound. The clinician was not concerned because she could prounce the sounds in some words and not in others, so she is working on the sounds and at under 3.5 she was not expected to be proficient in all the sounds completly and she said because she is pronouncing them in some words & not others, that they will come. The thing that made me laugh in here was the clinician asked her to name foods that people eat and the first thing she said was "Flowes in the pot we gew (r's gone)." The clinician asked her repeat and she did and then looked at me and asked if I knew what she said, which I did and told her and then she gave me a puzzled look and I explained that we grew nasturtiums in pots this summer and you can eat the flowers on them. The clinician then just commented that she heard there was flowers you could eat but didn't know anyone who did. So, I guessing that was the first time a kid told her they ate flowers. Then after she did proceed to tell her other foods. It did annoy me that the clinician did not document or count flowers as one of the number of foods she named (she had to name so many.) Seriously, who is she to judge what people consider food or not as longa s it is something that is edible. That one more item would not have improved her score or anything, it was the principle of the idea for me.
Exit Interview - This went well since Isabel scored well above what she needed to and we don't have any concerns. They offered a bunch of literature and then gave us information about kindergarten readiness. One of the things they had on their was about being able to tie their shoes, which I had to ask about and she said that most kids learn how to do this between ages 4-6 and that Isabel is a little young to probably have the motor skills to do this, but she might be able to if we wanted to try.
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