G. had his latest assessment by the dev. ped. yesterday. It went pretty well--he chatted up a storm, was able to ID four pictures on her flash cards and managed to put a circle into the world's easiest puzzle.
We did hit a snag when it came to the peg board. He pulled one peg out of the hole just fine. He ran his fingers over the holes. He got soooo close to putting a peg into the hole, which would have been a big developmental triumph. I mean, like gifted or something. We were there with those pegs for what must have been 15 minutes out of a one hour appointment.
The whole thing was like watching golf, or even bowling. Why does every spectator--especially those of the male persuasion--think that body movement will aid the ball in reaching the hole? I used to love watching pro-bowling as a child (give me a break, it was Indiana and we had no cable) and it never ceased to amuse me how the professionals would contort themselves while watching the ball careen toward the pins. The doc and I were leaning from side to side, trying to mentally get that peg into the hole. When that didn't work, we resorted to pantomiming with our hands. Every time he didn't quite get it, we would groan. How sad is that?
It was even sadder that in my zeal to demo the proper use of the pegboard, I pushed one in a little too hard. G. couldn't get it out, M. couldn't get it out and neither could I. When we left, the doctor was energetically pulling on the peg, muttering to herself. Hope we don't get billed for that.
The upshot of the appointment was that he is definitely delayed in gross motor but perhaps not as much as before. He has good fine motor skills but was on the lower end of normal for visual-motor skills. Tell me doc, was it the pegs? Give him another chance!!! I was thrilled with his verbal/social results. No final report yet, but she placed him at 18 months. That is great since he is 14 months in a few days. Go Big G.! She was a little cagey about what she called a "skill imbalance", but that may have just been in my head. Of course, M. was talking in complete sentences at 16 months (in both French and English) but was unable to walk. That sounds like unbalanced skills to me...
The dev. ped. did admit that as soon as she saw him, the words "overgrowth syndrome" crossed her mind. How could they not? He is pretty darn big. One mom on the playground actually exclaimed "Holy Mother!" when I gave his age. The last time I went to the neuro's office, the doc greeted me with "Oh, I didn't know you had a third child. Where is G?" I said, "This is G!" He must have added 4 inches in height since the developmental ped. last saw him. So, he is kinda big. But she said he doesn't seem to fit the phenotype of any of the overgrowth syndromes as of yet and he is not delayed in the usual areas. She thinks he is just going to be a big guy.
Well, I think all of this giddiness about his speech has made my writing a little more run-on than usual. But hey, the doc said the A-word was off the table as far as she was concerned. I think that's cause for giddiness and a few run-ons, don't you?
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2 comments:
Sounds like a great evaluation to me! In general, as mothers, we tend to worry, but he sounds like a big boy who is just taking his time and worrying his Mommy.
Thanks for the encouragement! It's so hard to get a comforting eval these days--no one wants to be wrong in these days of lawsuits. So, everything they say about a child this young is couched in phrases like "for now" and "at this time." It makes you feel like they are expecting it could all go away at any moment.
I worry every day (see today's post), but thankfully not constantly anymore.
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