It's Personal...

[violence in the media]

My son doesn't talk. There's nothing wrong with him, and he's been saying occasional words since he was eleven months-ish old, but he doesn't talk. His doctor told me he was fine but I still requested help, and so she referred me to the speech therapist for the local school district. They have a program for really young kids, and he met the prerequisites of failure* so I enrolled him. It's not the kind of school where you sit down at a desk and pretend like you're paying attention to the teacher - that doesn't get anyone to start talking. It's the kind of school where the teacher is directly interacting with the kids [and the kids are interacting with each other] and playing games designed to elicit a response.

* Talk about a conflict of interest. When your child is being tested for anything, you want them to do well, but if they do too well, then they aren't eligible to be helped in the area in which they are lacking.

My wife is a school psychologist and tests kids for things such as these. You'd be surprised how many parents want their children classified as autism-spectrum (as opposed to a more-fitting learning disability or ADHD diagnosis) because it's worth more SSI money to them. Also, public perception has apparently determined that autism-spectrum has the cache of being a "real" problem; compared to learning disabilities, which just means your child is stupid, and ADHD, which is code for bad parent.

On an unrelated note, she tested a little girl earlier this week that has an IQ in the 40s.

[Kaelik]

My son doesn't talk. There's nothing wrong with him, and he's been saying occasional words since he was eleven months-ish old, but he doesn't talk. His doctor told me he was fine but I still requested help

Not to alarm you too much, but yeah, it doesn't mean your kid is super dumb or anything, I was actually the same way. I don't think my parents availed themselves of a speech therapist, as I understand it, apparently you do grow out of that.

No promises that your kid won't be a huge dick though.

[Prak]

one day your kid will find the Den.

This will either break him, or turn him into a huge dick. Assuming he wasn't one to begin with.

[Maj]

My wife is a school psychologist and tests kids for things such as these. You'd be surprised how many parents want their children classified as autism-spectrum (as opposed to a more-fitting learning disability or ADHD diagnosis) because it's worth more SSI money to them.

SSI? Social Security? You get paid to have autism-spectrum kids?

Also, public perception has apparently determined that autism-spectrum has the cache of being a "real" problem; compared to learning disabilities, which just means your child is stupid, and ADHD, which is code for bad parent.

I can totally see that. I admit that I take the fact that my son hasn't been really talking much personally - especially given what I've been learning. Lots of recent studies have found that the rate of talking is directly affected by the parental response to sounds and physical efforts to communicate on the part of the child . And so I feel guilty - I blame myself for not interacting with Giovanni as well as I should have.

And it's really a hard balancing act because one side of my family says he's fine (his cousin didn't really talk until age four), the other wonders what's wrong, and really, I just want to be able to communicate with my son.

On an unrelated note, she tested a little girl earlier this week that has an IQ in the 40s.

Wow.

Not to alarm you too much, but yeah, it doesn't mean your kid is super dumb or anything, I was actually the same way.

Why would I be alarmed? Because you can act like a real douche sometimes? I know Giovanni isn't dumb - he's amazingly independent and capable, and has mobility skills that are really impressive. He looks and acts like a three year old...Which may also be part of the problem - he looks and behaves like he's older than he is, so people mistake his age and expect him to have better language skills.

This will either break him, or turn him into a huge dick. Assuming he wasn't one to begin with.

[RobbyPants]

He's two. He's seriously 26 months old. The whole "this abstract action is bad, don't do it" isn't even developmentally applicable right now.

Hey, our kids are about the same age. My daughter just turned two on Monday. She talks quite a bit (couple hundred words), and she's really good at mimicking words and phrases she hears.

So, the past year has been a good exercise for me to not swear in front of her. Given how much I normally swear, I'd say I'm doing rather well.

[Kaelik]

Why would I be alarmed? Because you can act like a real douche sometimes? I know Giovanni isn't dumb - he's amazingly independent and capable, and has mobility skills that are really impressive. He looks and acts like a three year old...Which may also be part of the problem - he looks and behaves like he's older than he is, so people mistake his age and expect him to have better language skills.

Yes, that was the implication. Oh yeah, your kids not dumb. But he may turn into me! Muahahahuahahuhah!

Was the angle I was going for.

[Maj]

Hey, our kids are about the same age. My daughter just turned two on Monday. She talks quite a bit (couple hundred words), and she's really good at mimicking words and phrases she hears.

Congrats! We're getting there. Giovanni has been adding about five words a week to his common vocabulary (he says more but doesn't use them in everyday situations), and tries to imitate everything.

Yes, that was the implication. Oh yeah, your kids not dumb. But he may turn into me! Muahahahuahahuhah!

Was the angle I was going for.

It probably would be more effective if I actually thought you were an asshole.

[erik]

My eldest son isn't much of a talker. He's a bit younger, 21 months. He says probably a dozen different words or signs.

Off the top of my head he can say:
Hi
Meow (sometimes kitty)
Woof-woof
Bye-bye
Baby (sometimes guagua, spanish for baby in Chile)
There-we-go (he treats this as 1 word)
Please
No
Mama
Dada
Uh-oh

I had to work to get "Please" in the vocabulary. Figured it would be more pleasant than him reaching and grunting or crying for something, which is still the norm.

We have friends with an 18 month old girl who is much more developed verbally, but figure our son will get there eventually. We just keep reading to him and talking with him. Once he does start talking with multi-word sentences then we'll be thrilled.

[Prak]

How socialized are your guys' kids? could that have anything to do with it?

[erik]

How socialized are your guys' kids? could that have anything to do with it?

Our guy mostly is with mom and/or dad all day long. We try to go out to the park daily, but even then he mostly does his own thing. We know a few parents with similar-aged kids and try to do play-dates, but those still wind up being a ~bi-weekly event.

So he doesn't get to interact with little kids too much. Though for language at least at his current age, I don't think he'd learn much from them. He's mostly missing out on other social interactions I imagine.

[RobbyPants]

Hey, our kids are about the same age. My daughter just turned two on Monday. She talks quite a bit (couple hundred words), and she's really good at mimicking words and phrases she hears.

Congrats! We're getting there. Giovanni has been adding about five words a week to his common vocabulary (he says more but doesn't use them in everyday situations), and tries to imitate everything.

Cool! That sounds like a good rate. Also, I don't know if you're counting things like animal noises and people's names. Those things totally count in this case.

[Prak]

How socialized are your guys' kids? could that have anything to do with it?

Our guy mostly is with mom and/or dad all day long. We try to go out to the park daily, but even then he mostly does his own thing. We know a few parents with similar-aged kids and try to do play-dates, but those still wind up being a ~bi-weekly event.

So he doesn't get to interact with little kids too much. Though for language at least at his current age, I don't think he'd learn much from them. He's mostly missing out on other social interactions I imagine.

Just a thought I had. I know nothing about child development outside of "feed them" and "this end up".

[Maj]

He's a bit younger, 21 months.

You know, I keep hoping that I can break away from the age by month thing... But I can't. There is so much that happens developmentally in a single year that saying my son is two isn't a useful point of reference. I now understand why parents do this.

Off the top of my head he can say:
Hi

"Hi" was Giovanni's first word, and it was the passport to getting whatever he wanted. You don't need "more" or "please" when you walk up to a stranger, say "Hi" and smile.

He doesn't say any variant on Mom or Dad.

There-we-go (he treats this as 1 word)

I've noticed this just recently. Giovanni never liked the word peek-a-boo, but he likes the game. So we play "Where's Giovanni?" The response when he pulls off the blanket being "There he is!" The other day, he walked into the room with his blanket on his head, pulled it off, and emulated the same sing-song rhythm of "there he is." He does the same thing for "I don't know."

Cool! That sounds like a good rate. Also, I don't know if you're counting things like animal noises and people's names. Those things totally count in this case.

Oh, yes. I'm counting those! Pretty much any consistent referential sound counts.

How socialized are your guys' kids? could that have anything to do with it?

YES!!! IT DOES!!!! (And the answer to the question is that he spent a lot of time with adults, but not with other kids his age - until school. And I was worried about leaving him in class alone - all his previous playgroup experiences still had me in the background - but it turned out he was happy as a clam to be left by himself in a pile of strangers.)

It's totally different to go from an environment where parents dominate (My mom calls this the telepathy effect because parents respond to their kids almost as though they're connected via telepathy - X cry means food, Y smile means Justin Bieber...) to an environment where there are people who want to interact with you, but you don't know how (and they don't know you well to anticipate what you mean).

Nothing spurs you on to learning better than being motivated to obtain something you want. And when you want to play with someone but don't know how, you find ways to communicate really fast.

Edit: Fixed attribution.

[violence in the media]

My wife is a school psychologist and tests kids for things such as these. You'd be surprised how many parents want their children classified as autism-spectrum (as opposed to a more-fitting learning disability or ADHD diagnosis) because it's worth more SSI money to them.

SSI? Social Security? You get paid to have autism-spectrum kids?

The extremely short, ultra-generalized version is yes, provided your family is on welfare to begin with. Basically, if you're on welfare and have a kid, that kid is worth money in the form of increased SSI payments. If the kid has a mental or physical disability, then the payments are increased based on the type of disability. Autism spectrum has a lot of symptom overlap with other, less financially valuable, diagnoses and so you get a lot of parents fighting for the autism diagnosis. Also, there's the social capital/societal acceptance angle I mentioned earlier that comes with having an autistic kid.

So, if you're already low on the socio-economic ladder, you have a perverse incentive to have disabled children.

Regarding your "Wow", the lowest IQ child she's ever tested had a 25. The little girl had to be strapped into a chair to be tested. She was 8 years old (though looked about 5), she wasn't potty trained, couldn't walk, couldn't sit still, and the only words she knew were "shut up". (I think that ties the discussion back to what kids hear in the home, right?)

[erik]

Cool! That sounds like a good rate. Also, I don't know if you're counting things like animal noises and people's names. Those things totally count in this case.

Oh, yes. I'm counting those! Pretty much any consistent referential sound counts.

That's actually a quote of RobbyPants, but I agree nonetheless. =-)

[Maj]

Oh, crap. So here's a random question on posting etiquette, I guess...

When someone makes an error like that, it is better to let the original mistake stand so that comments make more sense and the event can be seen in context, or should the original be corrected?

My general inclination is the former, but I really have no idea.

[RobbyPants]

Well, you can have your cake and eat it too, and put some type of bold "edit" tag in there or something to make note of it. That way the original content is still there, so what Erik said makes sense, and you correct the mistake at the same time.

But as for "official" etiquette, I don't really know.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Depends on the situation.

If it's a minor error, I will acknowledge it both by posting and making a note in the post that it was edited (spelling mistakes, wording errors, sometimes I'll write a word I hear in the background instead of the word in my head.)

If I say something stupid, I let it stand. One should never be afraid of ones own mistakes; that is how you learn.

[Maj]

Thanks.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Grr. they are trying to withhold my financial aid this semester (And no, I am not sure who "they" are )

One of the reasons is a good reason, another reason is due to something that happened ten years ago that I thought I had fixed back in 2008. /sigh.


Filing an appeal form. I'm playing up the fact that I just need 1 more credit to graduate to get them to play ball with me for just a little while...

[Maj]

More houses this Thursday. The one we really liked was sold the day we went out to see it.

(This is where the hardwood thing comes from - we see all these old houses with gorgeous wood floors covered by crap. Fortunately, it's cheaper to rip up the crap and do some sanding, than it is to install more crap over the top. And there's less off-gassing.)

[Prak]

Openly transsexual College Basketball player

This is just kind of awesome in general.

[ubernoob]

//

[RobbyPants]

My understanding is no hormone therapy yet, so as not to interfere with sports.

Make sure you don't scroll to the bottom and read the comments.

[Prak]

My understanding is no hormone therapy yet, so as not to interfere with sports.

Yeah, he's just holding off because he doesn't want to deal with the college shitting itself over what to do with a physically male player on the girls team or a originally-born female on the guys team.

Make sure you don't scroll to the bottom and read the comments.

...oh fuck.... I'm glad I didn't yet, and I'll make sure I don't...