ECSE Take Two

Shortly after Nate started preschool his teacher recommended he get a speech evaluation; she was concerned about his articulation and lack of conversation.  I suspected a speech delay but wanted to see how he’d do in a school environment and if the interaction with other kids would help.  Although Nate’s school is in the city we live in, we fall in another city’s school district so he needed to get the evaluation through the boys’ home school. So he had a preliminary screening with the head speech pathologist at J’s school, who after meeting with Nate and talking to his teacher, recommended a full developmental assessment.  He was evaluated by Ms. Lisa, J’s teacher, and Ms. Kim, J’s speech pathologist, who diagnosed him with an early childhood developmental delay.  They also noted possible sensory disorder issues and autistic tendencies but those can’t be diagnosed within a 2 hour assessment.  So the recommendation was that he start in the Early Childhood Special Education program, same program as J, so he could start receiving speech services and they could further assess the other issues. 

 

Initially I was sad about this; although I really like Ms. Lisa I had become very fond of Nate’s teacher and school AND the bonus was that it was a full day, full week program.  ECSE is only a half day program Monday - Thursday, with Friday classes 1 Friday every month.  And because of his age he couldn’t be in J’s class, he needed to be in the morning ECSE class.  Fortunately there was a spot available in an afternoon program at Nate’s old school so he can attend ECSE in the morning at his home school and stay at his old school in the afternoon. 

 

I was also worried about the transition because Nate was so attached to his teacher, the para pros and his classmates.  He started his new school schedule last week and had a great first day in ECSE; no crying or screaming.  According to Ms. Lisa he seemed very comfortable and happy to be there, sat at circle time for 30 minutes and participated.  And he loved riding the bus to school.  The report from Mrs. Stanek (afternoon teacher) was that he had a GREAT day and was very happy.  He was so excited and moved from one thing to the next.  So fortunately I was worried for nothing and now I have two kids with developmental delays; it’s never a dull moment in the Jones’ household.