Assessments

Dexter has been slow to talk. In fact, as of now the only word he has is "More" and it's a signed word. He doesn't use it as regularly as I'd like. I've had concerns since he was around 12 months so we finally got the ball rolling on Early Intervention when he was around 15-16 months. I don't know if any of you are familiar with Early Intervention, but it's a government program to offer therapy for kids a little behind on stuff. They're also around to help out with developmentally different kids, kids with spectrum disorders (autism/aspergers) and any other kids needing a little help either physically or developmentally.

We had a developmental therapist and a physical therapist come by last Thursday to assess Dexter and see where he's at. It was a bit of a whirlwind and Dex decided not to sleep the night before. He wasn't necessarily being difficult, but he was all over the place so I didn't get to absorb much of what they said. I do know that he qualifies for speech therapy once a week, developmental therapy once a week, and he's going to be assessed by an occupational therapist on May 13. They said he doesn't know where his body is in relation to his surroundings (I'm paraphrasing here, and I believe this is proprioception). They said that's why he pats his belly and bounces his back off of things like the couch and wall when he sits up against something. They didn't stay long and they didn't give any kind of definite answers or diagnoses. To be fair, only a developmental pediatrician can diagnose most things like autism. I'm going to have a list of questions ready for the occupational therapist, and for the speech and developmental therapists whenever they get around to calling me.

If any of you have any questions that you think I should add to my list, leave a comment with them. I'm a little overwhelmed with most of this and don't remember a lot of what they did say, so I apologize if I can't answer anyone's questions to their satisfaction. Hopefully I can have more answers the more we delve into the program.
In better news, they said he is off the charts advanced as far as gross motor skills go. Also, once I started making a point of offering him choices, he would reach for the choice he wanted. I don't think anything is seriously wrong with Dexter, I'm just exhausting all free options available to me. I want to make sure I'm not becoming an enabler for bad behaviors regarding communication and fine motor skills. I'm sure they say this to all the obviously erratic and worried mothers, but the speech therapist said I have GREAT instincts. She even asked if I have a background in child education. :D

To counteract all this wordiness, here's a great picture I took recently of everyone's favorite little blondie:

I've been letting this go too long.

Easter

Fox got a super cool car. He had so much fun driving it around. I can't wait to take a billion pictures of Fox having fun in his awesome car.

Finally feeling better

4/3-4/12/2010

Forgot one!

This one is from 3/29

2 weeks of a stomach bug. :(

3/23/2010-4/2/2010