Splint Free :)

Hooray!  We went to see Dr. Caudle yesterday and got the go-ahead to take off the splint on her arm.  He thought things were looking good.  He didn't take any X-Rays, but clinically thought things were looking well.

Molly had a speech evaluation yesterday and things went very well.  There are some sounds that she is not able to make: Milk = Milt, Bucket = Buttet, Spoon = Suoon and some "F" sounds are off.  She also used to say "Shish" instead of Fish, so there is at least one example of improvement.  A normal score for pronunciation would be anything under a 10 and she scored an 11.  The therapist thought this was fine and that unless it was impeding our ability to understand her that she would correct it on her own.  So, one less thing to worry about :)

They also did a series of expressive and receptive language tests with her and she did exceptionally well.  I am not writing this to brag, but rather to express my fear of having an unusually advanced little girl.  The Speech Therapist was supposed to continue the test until Molly bottomed out and could no longer answer the questions.  Well, we were at the 5-year-old level and she still hadn't bottomed out.  The therapist recommended that we stop, since it had already been an hour and there wasn't any need to continue.  Yikes.  Molly was asked verbal questions and also asked to point to different parts of a picture book the therapist had with her.  She was asked to repeat 5+ word sentences, which Molly was able to do rather easily.  She was asked to point out "his dog" given a picture of a boy and a girl each holding a dog, Molly was able to point out who had more ice cream or apples etc. and who was taller.  Molly was able to point out which picture would have shown what it was like outside when "Cindy" got all wet, or what it would look like at nighttime.  Molly seemed to ignore the therapist when the question was too easy and it would take many requests to get her to answer, but when it was a challenging question you could see her studying the picture and really thinking about her answer.  

This is all good news, but has me quite nervous about her placement for preschool when she turns 3.  I am hopeful that we will be able to find a public preschool to provide a stimulating environment for Molly with mostly typical students, as opposed to a predominantly special needs environment.

Her ability to interact with us is progressing by the moment.  She is now able to recite whole pages of some of her favorite books and has also started singing most of the lyrics to some children's songs as well.

Bedtime and naptime have improved a little bit in the past few days and we are hoping this will continue.