Evaluated

James went for his speech evaluation on Friday.  They did it in a really nice way -- he got to play in a fairly natural way, while the speech pathologist interacted with him asking questions and observing, while her intern transcribed everything he said with the sounds he was using (for instance, that he says "gump" instead of "jump"). You have to be a very good listener to be in that line of work!  The SP was really great; she was wonderful with James, and also explained things to us as she went and at the end.  And it didn't hurt that she would spontaneously comment on how wonderful he was to work with and how cute he was. :)

We don't know the formal results yet, but my impression is that they think they will be able to qualify him for services based on some of his speech patterns (sometimes dropping final consonants, deleting weak syllables in multi-syllable words, and something else that I don't recall exactly. It might be the fact that he doesn't usually use words like "is" -- he'll just say, "Matthew running!" instead of "Matthew is running!).  

The classroom observation also categorized him in the "at risk" category -- not for academic skills, but for social interactions (not conversing with classmates, being less assertive, using more gestures than words with adults).  Again, this all comes down to speech and hearing issues, not other social skills deficits. I didn't fully agree with all of their ratings on that observation, but I wasn't about to argue with it, since I also think that any help he can get on that front will only be a good thing.  He's definitely a lot quieter at school than at home.  And while I don't think that's a big deal in the 2-year old class, it probably changes a lot when he gets into the 3s.  

So, I'll be happy if this preliminary info ends up being the case for the IEP meeting (the meeting where they decide what services he's eligible for).  I think he could benefit from help in those areas, and these criteria don't call his cognitive skills into question.