Yesterday, we had our final meeting with the Early Intervention (EI) evaluation and placement team. They recommended that Aerin meet with a developmental interventionist twice a week, and a speech therapist twice a month. I became rather upset after this meeting. Not because they were saying Aerin is delayed and needs therapy (I have accepted this after the first meeting), but because their evaluation seemed inaccurate after further examination. When I looked over the initial evaluation carefully (I hadn't seen the scores they had assigned for each skill, and didn't receive a copy of the full evaluation until last week), I noticed that they had scored Aerin lower than they should have. Now, I'm sure some of you are wondering if I'm...

Yesterday, two ladies from the state early intervention program stopped by our home. NJ's early intervention program assesses a child in the following areas of development: Gross Motor Skills Fine Motor Skills Communication, Speech, & Language Social/Emotional Development Cognitive Skills Adaptive/Self-help Skills In order to be eligible for early intervention services, the child must have delays of at least: 2.0 standard deviations below the mean in one developmental area; or 1.5 standard deviations below the mean in two more more developmental areas Aerin scored below the mean in every category, with the exception of fine motor skills. (She actually scored well above average in this area.) While her gross motor skills and social/emotional development were just below average, her cognitive skills and adaptive skills were about 1.5 standard deviations below the mean. Particularly...