Jackson’s Speech Evaluation

Jackson had his speech evaluation this morning and everything is fine…actually better than fine!

The results are based off of Jackson’s age. The age groups are separated by 3 months, so Jackson’s results would be compared to kids 3 years to 3 years 3 months range.

Average is the 50th percentile. Jackson scored in the 67th percentile. I am very happy about that, not to mention the fact that Jackson just turned 3 on September 27th, so he is the youngest of the 3 years – 3 years 3 months range.

She showed me this paper below and I was shocked.

My main concern with Jackson was that a lot of his blends are unclear. However, by looking at the chart, there are only 4 blends that should be mastered at the age of 6 and the rest not until the age 8. In my mind, that whole chart should have been mastered by his 3rd birthday, but I was wrong….and this time, I liked being wrong!

The errors Jackson had were common for his age. If he cannot pronounce a sound, he will substitute it with another sound he does know. For example: Dooks for Brooks, druck for truck, milp for milk, etc. He will commonly substitute with a b or d. Another error was with letters that the sound continues, such as s and f. He often cuts them off too soon. She said for me to really stretch those sounds out when I talk or read to him. (ffffffffffish, ssssssssstar, etc.)

She also said at age 4 a stranger should understand 75% of what a child says. and she could understand well over 75% of what Jackson said. I guessed strangers could understand about 50-60% of what he says. Later on today I got to thinking and what I never considered is that a stranger must actually try to listen. It is always easier for people to look to the parents and say “What did he say?” than to actually listen to him.

She also tested for the length of his sentences. At this age, he should speak in 3-4 word sentences. She said on average, his sentence length was 8-10 words. She said his vocabulary is wonderful!

The first thing she said to me before telling me his results was how impressed she was with his manners. This made me feel good because I never know how he really acts when we are not around and does he actually grasp the manners we try to teach him. One story she shared with me was that they were “playing a game” (which was actually part of the test) and Jackson said “We need to clean this game up before we play another one! Don’t forget to put the lid on!” ha!

Apparently there were cards with pictures on each card. She would ask Jackson to say the name of the picture. For example: “Can you say house?” and she would really stretch the word out so that Jackson would do the same and she could hear the sounds she needed to hear from him. At one point Jackson pulled out the next card before she did and Jackson said to her, while pointing to his chin (which totally cracks me up because I have done that with him before!) “Can you say moooooooon?” haha! Little Stinker!

So….all is well! Based off of this, he is developing just as he should be. Now I can document the cute mispronounced words in his baby book without wondering “is this normal” in the back of my mind!