Abby's Speech Update

It's been a while since I've shared any "speech" news for Abby, but there has been nothing short of serious strides made & major mountains climbed by our 3.5 year old ball-of-fire!  Today was Abby's first day back at school since coming home from our FL Spring Break vacation and she was more than ready to see her two favorite teachers and enjoy the company of her little classmates.  As she stepped off the bus shortly before lunch time, she was ubber-excited about bringing home her report card (as well as her book order catalog... the girl loves her books).  Without so much as a second thought, she handed me her book bag and said, "Mommy, I doing soooo great in school" and skipped inside to take off her snow gear.  Too funny!

When I had a quiet moment while the girls were enjoying lunch, I snuck a peek at her report card & quarterly IEP report.  Although I've known in my heart-of-hearts how much Abby's speech has improved over the course of this last year, it still took my breath away to read about the unbelievable progress she has made while enrolled in her special education communication class in the last 3 quarters.  I couldn't help but wipe away the tears of happiness and pride that filled my eyes as I read not only the kind words of her teachers, but also the data of progress that speaks volumes about our Abby:

Articulation - AMAZING Improvement!

• Sept 18, 2012 - score of 161 (severity rating was "profound")
• Jan 8, 2013 - score of 115 (severity rating was "severe")
• Feb 25, 2013 - score of 76 (severity rating was "moderate")

Omitting Sounds - Wow!!! Unbelievable!

• Sept 18, 2012 - omitting middle sounds 71% of time
• Jan 8, 2013 - omitting middle sounds 36% of time
• Feb 25, 2013 - omitting middle sounds 7% of time

Consonant Clusters - She is working so hard!

• Sept 18, 2012 - reducing consonant clusters 108% of time
• Jan 8, 2013 - reducing consonant clusters 85% of time
• Feb 25, 2013 - *not provided*

Currently, Abby has a few vowel errors but her words contain the correct number of syllables.  She is correctly using beginning /f/ sounds and /k/ sounds in conversation (new sounds they have focused on this last quarter).  She continues to have difficulty with tongue placement with imitating /l/, but this is also one of the more difficult single consonant sounds.  Additionally, Abby's sentences are steadily getting longer (average sentence length is 3.3 words; only slightly below normal range of 4.1 words).  Abby continues to do a super job using "I" instead of "Abby" to refer to herself.  She is using early developing prepositions (in, on, under, behind), plural endings and is starting to use copula "is".  And in true Abby fashion, she is asking many, MANY questions despite being much quieter than her other peers.

Not to sound cliché or anything, but Abby has left me speechless.