Avery's Chatting Up a Storm

Avery had her preschool assessment last week (i.e., her speech language pathologist and physiotherapist gave her a series of tests to see whether she would get funding for special ed preschool). Well, Avery's language has improved so much that she is now in the 15th percentile for expression (which is almost in the typical range for her age). She won't get funding (so sadly there will be no preschool this coming fall) but she is doing gangbusters (using words for commands and putting together three and four word sentences from time to time)!

• What she started with: mom, dad, more, done, no, out...
• What she has moved on to: 
• Repeats a great deal of words when pointedly told. 
• Knows all the family names and will tell random people who we all are. 
• Calls out "Skipper" in a super-loud voice (esp. when she decides to give him treats or water out of the fridge spigot...she makes a big mess but she likes being in charge of him. She tries to feed him water out of a cup like her "babies". It's all very cute.)
• Knows "drink", "juice" and "milk". Favorite words are "cookie" and "yogurt".
• Still has to be prompted most times to say "please" and "thank you" but Jing is drilling it into her.
• Puts together words for certain scenarios (e.g., when going out, she says "jacket", "backpack", "boots" and "outside").
• Mimics most words in all songs she knows even if they aren't always close. She loves music!
• Knows all of her alphabet and numbers to 20 (and never misses one!).

I'm sure there is lots more that I am forgetting but she is really starting to keep up with her peers in vocabulary and following simple directions. And, even if she doesn't know the words, she still bosses around all the kids her age! She rattles on and they just let her (I guess she likes to hang around the passive kids!).