The boys were evaluated yesterday through a program called "Early Intervention". This program checks development through age 3 to make sure that babies, especially preemies or babies at risk for delays are developing on track.
The EI eval went really well...there was no question on their physical skills (gross motor, fine motor, social). They were a little shy for about 2 minutes and then they were climbing in the evaluators' laps, playing with them and all of that. Max showed off his "look, ma, no hands!" skills in the standing department and they both had age appropriate skills for playing with toys, picking them up, finding hidden toys, banging stuff together all of that.
They don't show toys or put toys in a container. They also don't point to objects that they see or want, but they do use a pointer finger to manipulate buttons or poke at something. They also have a neat pincer grasp when picking up puffs or stuff off the ground.
Oh, I should mention that they were scored on both 11 month (adjusted age) and 12 month (real age) scales.
For the verbal skills, which was what I was worried about, they scored "average" on an 11 month scale with scores between 97-103 on an 100=average scale and mildly/moderately delayed on the 12 month scale with scores of 75-83. Mild/Moderate is NOT enough to qualify them for services and the speech pathologist said that one month behind is pretty normal for boys/twins/preemies at this age anyway. She didn't officially give them credit for their one word "nom nom" but said she would consider it a word since they use it appropriately and consistently during mealtimes.
They each have at least 5 consonants (M, P, B, D, T) and use them in repeating syllables, "mamama", "bababa", "dadada" and also combine them in "bap" and "dat". They are starting to imitate/mimic, which I knew they would do if you blow raspberries they will raspberry back, but she also got them to repeat mamamama and babababa to her, so she said to keep working on that.
To increase their verbal/communication skills she said to keep talking to them like I was doing. They did say that I was talking to them a lot and appropriately. And also to work on a couple of baby signs. I've been trying "more", "milk" and "food" with them, but she told me to only give them 3-4 small pieces of food/puffs and then when they're done say "more?" (then I do sign for "more" and then take their hands and do the sign while saying "more") and THEN give them more. Alex was kind of copying me last night, so maybe he sort of got it? I am going to get a baby signs DVD this weekend.
She also said, when reading to them to ask questions like "Can you show me the dog/bunny/baby?" but also ask questions like "Here's a picture of a dog, where is your dog?"
Anyway, I think that was it. It was just really nice to have someone else validate what I am doing with them and give me a couple of pointers. They kept commenting on how cute the boys were and how well they play with each other and stuff, so that was nice too!
It was also nice to get some suggestions and ideas of what else I can be doing with them, like with the reading and stuff. One of them had this really good book that I am going to see if I can find online. Of course, now I can't remember what it was called!
