Sunday, May 20, 2012

Developmental Delays

Since January, I have been told by several different "professionals" that Kinsley has some sort of delay. Me, as her Mommy, never saw any of this and have been overwhelmed with all the comments and concerns that have brought to my attention. To me, with the exception of her speech, her falling a lot, and the excessive drooling, she is a completely normal 2 year old. After hearing this stuff time and time again, I obviously start worrying, "Ok, is my child going to have learning disabilities, does she have something wrong with her brain, etc." I think because it took them so long when she was a newborn to get her thyroid levels down to a safe range, has affected her and caused this. The question is, "Will she catch up?" Honestly, I still don't see her as being that much different than other kids her age. Maybe I just don't see it because I'm her Mom. She had her speech evaluation back in December and of course she qualified for speech therapy. The speech therapist refereed her to a program called "Baby Net". They provide services to any child up to age 3 in SC that has a special need based on their testing. So, Baby Net sent someone out to my home to test her and she did poorly on the speech and language portion, the cognitive portion and another portion. They send an Early Interventionist out once a week to my house to work with her, mostly on her fine and gross motor skills. Kinsley looks forward to her coming and "playing with her." She love it. Her EI asked me if she had ever had an occupation therapy evaluation and I told her no. Later that week, her speech therapist asked me the same thing. She sent in for her an OT evaluation, and once again, she scored low on several areas. So now we have added OT to our weekly therapy. They are still trying to figure out the pattern with her "drooling". To me it is much worse when she is excited, nervous, or concentrating on something like working a puzzle. She doesn't even realize when she is doing it. She falls and trips a lot more than normal and she has a very high tolerance for pain. She will have blood running down her leg and she doesn't even realize it. She has a lot of sensory processing stuff going on too, but to me, that's normal. Maybe not to the extreme she takes it, but in some sort or fashion, it's normal. She has a very hard time following simple directions, especially 2 step, unless you walk her through it, which is something they are concerned about. Some things she catches onto very fast, such as learning shapes. She knows all the basic shapes, plus diamond, star, heart, etc. and caught on very quickly. But yet counting and colors she just can't grasp it. She is doing better on counting but no matter how much we work with her on colors, she just can't get it. It almost makes me wonder if she is possibly color blind. I could go on and on, but just needed to vent I guess. I question myself everyday and am trying to prepare myself that she may have some sort of learning disability. If she does, I do not think it's severe. No matter what, I do thank God for my little blessing and I accept her just the way she is.

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