12.18.13 ~ Nora and Language

Recently I bit the bullet and finally scheduled an assessment for sweet little not-talking-much Nora. This sort of service is free because we live in Howard County now, where people are socialists. Haha. Anyway, I had done my homework and knew Nora was saying significantly less words than would be expected for a child her age. So, because the local government is impressively well funded and the socialists have their shit together, I called to schedule and less than two weeks later we had an assessor at the door. She asked some questions about our family background and we immediately discovered that she and I had both attended Columbia. Nora sat in my lap for the first few minutes of the interview and gave the lady a deep, serious stare down. But as the woman started asking what Nora can and can't do, Nora warmed up and started performing. She wanted to play with the lady's papers, she took her pen, she drew, she laughed, she brought toys over, and she tried to share her snack. The real kicker is that as I was trying to discuss my concerns about her language, Nora was literally using every word in her vocabulary plus at least three new ones I had never heard her say before. After about 15 minutes of this, the lady recommended not proceeding with the assessment. She also told me I should return to Columbia and crack a child development book. She did say that by Nora's age one normally expects a larger vocabulary. However, she said Nora's receptive language, her nonverbal communication, and her willingness to repeat words and sounds are all signs of normal development and that she was unlikely to qualify for services for these reasons. So, there you have it. She's fine. But my PhD has been discredited. So, if you're looking for me, I'll be over there studying my child development book.