14 April 2015

A little good news. I'll take it.

We had another assessment for Frodo on Sunday.  The first two assessments- or one assessment over two days-  was to see where he is on the ASD.  That assessment was almost all bad news, exacerbated, I think, by Frodo's uncooperativeness.  He had a stubborn pair of days which influenced the assessment.   What's done is done.

However, Sunday's assessment was of his language skills.  He repeats things endlessly, but we weren't sure how much of what he was repeating he understood.  As it turns out, quite a bit.  His vocabulary is fairly good for a kid his age, with one curious problem- he seems to have no verbs.  For instance, during a test where he was required to fill in blanks or complete a sentence, he was shown a picture of a boy and a girl.  Pointing, the tester said:  "The girl is standing, but the boy is...?"

Frodo: Chair.

Tester:  Yes, chair.  The girl is standing, but the boy is...

Frodo: In a chair.

Some things he seemed to near identify with a lateral association.  For instance, he called a telescope a magnifying glass, despite the fact that I have taken him to the local observatory and shown him telescopes, while we don't have a typical magnifying glass at home.  He also correctly identified binoculars, but I have no idea where he has ever seen a pair or been told it's name.  In short, he has a larger vocabulary than even I knew.  Just not one with verbs.

I find this to be a weird and curious kind of problem- I am sure there is some word out there for this sort of aphasia, but the assessor seems to think this is a fixable problem.  For the moment, I am relieved.  This proves what we had suspected: he is absorbing information, even though he does not seem to be paying attention, and he can display his knowledge and answer question, albeit only when he is in the mood.  

After all the bad news of previous weeks, I'll take it.

1 comment:

Patience said...

At age 4; my dd was shown a picture of a kite and said; "that's a diamond". (as an example) From what you've said about Frodo; he really does sound like he has a lot of strengths. (all things considered) If there is speech; it's great because I've seen a lot of kids with NO speech. I kept getting told (in a positive way) dd had a "lot of words" . The other thing is that it depends on who you speak to. It doesn't mean you don't have a long road ahead but it helps if you have people supporting you who can do it with a smile; it helps a lot. (we had both) It's hard right now (and I really know that). I can tell you it's going to be ok but until you see some light; you can't be in that space. And that's ok too.