A tale of two Brians

Yesterday Jacob had his big ECEP evaluation, which consisted of a team (a pediatrician, a speech pathologist, a physical therapist, and a psychologist) all observing him to try to get a feel for where he is. The results were kind of surprising to me because I thought he was a little further along in his skills, but he scored a developmental age of about 10 months except for speech/language, where he scored 7-8 months. The thing that really surprised me is that the test results put him on the autism spectrum. That is kind of a hard thing to understand-- it doesn't mean that he HAS autism, just that he exhibits a number of behaviors (slow language development, trouble with large groups of people, repetitive behaviors, etc.) that put him on the lower end of the spectrum. The good news is that that qualifies him for an even more specialized preschool program that will work intensively with him in ways that have been proven to help those with autism. So Jacob will be off to school on August 11th! That's the hardest part for me-- realizing that my baby isn't going to be under my watchful and protective eye all the time anymore. But I guess that was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm glad that Jacob will now be able to get therapy that might actually work for him!