Pre-school screening.

I took Jackson to a school yesterday for a preschool screening. I brought him in because in order to get approved for speech therapy, you have to go through that screening. I really liked the woman who did the assessment. She was very thorough and she explained every single question on the test and Jackson's answers because I wasn't in the room. Afterwards we talked for about half an hour about behavior and kindergarten. It was reassuring for me to hear that she thinks Jackson will do fine and that his "impulsiveness" is normal and expected. She said that boys don't grow out of that until 3rd grade and not to worry until that point. (Jackson turned 4 in November) So, the good news... she could score on each question based on age appropriate responses. She was scoring from the 2 year old range to 6 year old range. The tests for colors, shapes and letters (including phonics) she scored him at the 6 year old range... she told me that if the test allowed her to score him even higher she would have :) She was very impressed with him in those areas. I am too! Numbers he only counted to 12... so it was 4 year old range... I told her he can count up to 30 and up to 100 in 10s but since he didn't do it for her she can't count it! He dropped the ball on that one! His speech was between the 4-5 year old range... which surprised me. I guess I compare him too much to other kids but I just think he doesn't speak as well as them. She said that in order to refer him to speech therapy he would have to score in the bottom 20th percentile... and he definitely didn't. So We are going to reevaluate in September and make sure he has made the progress she hopes for. The only thing he messed up on is saying an w for a r in ring and leaving a t sound off of "nest". He did poorly on the scissor portion... probably because he has never used scissors in his life! She said that he was concentrating so hard trying to cut on the line and he kept getting frustrated! I guess I know what we need to practice. On another test she said a phrase and Jax had to tell her how you would respond in that situation. She said "Breaking something that isn't yours". His response was "The car". She was a little baffled by that and when we talked I just had to laugh. I pulled out of my purse Brynnan and Jonas' car that they had brought and Jackson broke the wheels off! I think he was trying to tell her that he had just broken something that wasn't his... the car! I thought that was pretty funny. Jackson is really good at tracing letters and shapes, but the test had blank lines, nothing to trace, so he didn't do too well on the writing portion. Overall she thinks his skills are age appropriate, if not a little advanced... so that makes me feel really good. I am proud of his smarts! :) Now if only he would pronounce his words a little better :)