So Proud of Cameron!

I have to keep this short because I have a job interview today (YAY!) but I am so excited to share this news!! I just got done a meeting with the school system that provides Cameron's speech therapy, and they said he is doing so well that after he turns 3 next month, they are going to close his case out! They are saying he was evaluated at a 24 month level, but they think he is actually higher than that. And his intelligibility was rated at 80%.

Short summary of what we went through as far as speech... When Cameron was 18 months, he was not saying a word. Nothing. Not only that, but he was getting so frustrated with his inability to verbalize his feelings/thoughts/wants/needs/etc, that he was banging his head on the floor, the wall, the door, everywhere. He had a permanent welt on his forehead foreverrrrr. The tantrums were out of control. His pediatrician referred him to the Infants & Toddlers Program thru the public school system. He was evaluated and they assigned him a special educator to come to the house once a week for an hour. I was never really fond of that whole idea, I felt as though he just needed speech services and nothing else. Because he was at his actual age level in every other area besides speech. So I let the special education continue for the time being because at the very least it seemed as though he enjoyed the teacher's company. Finally though, I got frustrated with his lack of progress and basically told his case manager that I wanted him in speech ASAP. At this point he was about 20 months old. The case manager told me that he was at a 9 month level with regards to his speech and that she didn't want to refer him to speech services because "you don't teach a 9 month old to talk, do you?". Ummm no you don't, but he was not ACTUALLY 9 months old, he was almost 2 YEARS OLD. So I called her supervisor and straight up said I refuse to work with this lady. And I want speech services started NOW. I think I scared her because I was so upset lol and she arranged for speech to begin soon afterwards.

Cameron started working with his teacher, Kerri, when he was about 2. Not long after that, he started saying colors (insisting red was yellow haha). Then he moved onto numbers. He LOVES numbers. He can count to 50. If he sees a number anywhere, he shouts it out. He can write numbers. He is also now doing the same with letters... He can identify every letter of the alphabet. He knows action words, he knows animals, animal sounds, he makes requests ("can i have a......") and he tells me when he's hurt ("hurt self"). I'm so proud. It seems like once he started with Kerri he just started talking on and on and never stopped. And he no longer bangs his head out of frustration. Now he sticks to plain ol' regular little boy skinned knees and bruised elbows :-)

I'm kind of sad tho. I love his teacher, she is so sweet. And Cameron loves her too. But now I guess I need to accept the fact that he is a talker and doesn't need her anymore.

Anyway, I gotta head out the door soon. But just wanted to brag!! YAY GO CAMERON!! Look at this adorable little boy, I love him more than words can describe...