ripping off the bandaid

Jayden turns three in February so we are beginning the IEP process and working with regional center to determine eligibility. Today, Jayden had a developmental assessment. The assessor thought he did really well....I thought Jayden performed as expected. The results (if I remember correctly):

Cognitive Development is at 26 (or was it 28....) months
Receptive Language 24 months
Expressive Language 17 months

Although they can't measure IQ at this age, he was given a score of 80. I was told 85 is the low end of normal or average. This puts Jayden just a bit lower than normal but will not qualify him for regional center based on a diagnosis of retardation.

Even though I expected these results, its still to easy to hear. Its like ripping off the bandaid again. The diagnosis and its challenges are in black and white in front of me.

Tomorrow we return to speech. We purchased proloquo2go for the iPad and have begun introducing it to Jayden. I look forward to our speech session tomorrow and hope the therapist will share some ideas for implementing the program.