a few weeks ago i called an 'early childhood intervention' program and set up an intake and assessment for rowan, to see if he needs speech therapy. i'd noticed him making some different noises when he tries to talk, and not trying to sound out too many words. a few different friends mentioned to me that i should have him assessed for speech services, and since we have medicaid and it's free, i went ahead and set it up. they came out yesterday morning and did his assessment. the ECI assessment team is made up of three people: a teacher, a nurse, and a speech therapist. i really liked all three of the women who assessed rowan. they were all really friendly and open with me and josh, and had a wonderful, nurturing way of talking to and working with rowan. i was worried about him cooperating for the tests, because he gets really shy around strangers, but he warmed right up to them. the speech therapist, maria, was primarily the one working with rowan. she sat on the floor with him and showed him different pictures - for example, she had him look at a picture of three non-food items and three food items, then asked, "can you show me all of the things we eat?" the test took about an hour, and maria kept commenting that he was focusing and participating remarkably well for his age, and that she was having to go further and further into the material with him because he had surpassed what was normal for his age and kept going higher! that made me happy and proud. on the 'receptive development' - his cognitive skills - part of the test, and he ended up scoring at 30-32 months, i think. he scored at 22 months for the 'expressive development' part - his language. he is 26 months old, so that's not TOO much of a delay... but enough to qualify him for weekly speech therapy. maria noticed during the assessment that he drops the beginning and the end sound of a lot of words, and sometimes when he talks he puts the sound in the back of his throat instead of in the front of his mouth where it ought to be - which is what i had been noticing too. he makes a sort of gutteral sound in his throat sometimes when he tries out new words, kind of like gollum (i told micah that and she got the biggest kick out of it. "rowan talks like gollum!" luckily he's not old enough to take offense...). so, they told me rowan has to have his 2-year check up at the pediatrician's office before the weekly therapy sessions can begin, so both the kids have an appointment tomorrow afternoon. rowan will have his 2-year well visit, and they'll both have a vaccination. then i get to take them to the dentist next week - yipee. not looking forward to that.