What do you want?

"EH" - "EH" - "EHHHHH" this is the sound you can hear from my 15 month old throughout the day.  Does he want food?  Does he want to sleep? Does he want a toy?  What is it that he wants?  I can tell you on most days I lose a little bit of the patience that I have built up over time.  "What do you want!?!?!"

It is like when you brought your newborn home.  Every sound that new precious package made you soon found out meant food, sleep, bond time, playtime.  I feel this 15 months later.  Like I am trying to guess what every cry or sound means.  The problem lies in the fact that my little man has specific wants now.  He wants "that" toy or "that" thing to eat.  It's a guessing game - a long, long, long guessing game.  Eventually you will get what he wants but it takes a while - or he just gives up on you.

So many of you may be saying "well, Melissa, come on he is only 15 months".  I respond by saying that that is what we told ourselves about Abby for the longest time.  Well she is only 18 mths, she's only 2 year, she's only 3.  When does it end??  I refuse to play that game.  Andrew is trying to tell us what he needs - but all that is coming out is that he needs something.

Finger pointing - thats what I want!!  I want him to point to what he wants.  Point to what he needs.  This most children do at this age - but expressively, Andy does not use this communication skill.

The state we live in offers an early development program called Birth to 3.  Given that Abby has CAS we thought that we should have Andy evaluated.  Just before Andy turned 15 months B23 came to evaluate Andy for any developmental concerns.  There are many areas of concern regarding Andy.  After Andy's 15 month check up with the pediatrician they are also concerned about Andy's development.

Most of the concerns regarding Andrew are the following:
In Communication:
Slightly below average in Receptive Language: this is the understanding of language that others speak
Significantly below average in Expressing Language: this is is the language that an individual uses to make verbalizations and to use words.
In Adaptive (self - Help) - this addresses eating, dressing, toileting and personal responsibility.
Andy was assessed to be significantly below average.

The plan??  Well we have a few more tests to have done on Andy - a Oral Motor Control test and a hearing test.  However, the group found Andy significantly behind and therefore will start working with us (Andy & his family) on adaptive and communication issues.

Andy's service coordinator and I spoke at length yesterday about what the needs of Andy and the needs of his family is at this point in time.  The biggest thing is the ability to communicate.  Although CAS is not diagnosed until much later - there was talk about how the areas specific to his delays are also areas of delay in children with CAS.  Because of that - the first thing we will try is getting Andy to point to pictures.  The other goal is to introduce signing.  Andy will start receiving services in 2 weeks.  We are hoping that we can at least get Andy to start gesturing.

Until then we will try our best to understand "EH".