Evaluation

A while ago we set up an appointment to have Gwen evaluated because she was not walking yet.  The county offers free evaluation and services.  I wanted to be pro-active and am SO GLAD I was.

We took Gwen to be evaluated this morning and she is showing significant gross motor delays. She has the gross motor skills of an 11 month old and is only in the 5th percentile. She has week ankle and hip muscles which are causing the delay. There will be a physical therapist coming into our home to work with her. She also has extremely weak face muscles and that is why her mouth is always open. This could potentially hinder her speech in the future (although she is doing great right now). We can no longer use sippy cups and have to use ones with straws as well as give her more chewy foods. Luckily, Mike’s mom’s best friend is a speech pathologist, so we are hoping that she will be able to recommend developmental toys and things we can do, to fix that.

On a good note, she is extremely intelligent. They did tests on her and made their way through the 19 month check list and found nothing that Gwen couldn’t do. The occupational therapist said she could have gone on all day to see how far ahead she really was, but that isn’t why we were there. They said they could tell that we are very engaged parents and that we are doing an amazing job with her (the OT even said I stole her thunder by already doing the right things with Gwen to help get her walking/strong). I guess if anything had to be delayed; it is good that it is the gross motor skills although you never want to hear that your child is delayed by 6 months on anything.  We have a plan for what we want to see her do by 20 months.  Hopefully with the right amount of work, we can reach those goals.