evaluation update

evaluation update

First of all, thanks for the kind words. You guys are the best!

There were no real surprised in the evaluation. She's at about 13 months for gross motor and for expressive ability. I know those 2 are tied together, and she is babbling more as she walks more.

Considering they average in her lack of verbal speech and have no math for her extensive sign language (!), she came out at 20 months cognitive. That's great. I know she's worlds ahead of the curve on those sorts of things so I don't worry much. I really just want to know that the physical toll on her little body from the torticollis and plagiocephaly is being resolved. I don't want her to walk in flat-footed circles and have some specialist say, "We totally coulda fixed that a year earlier....", so we evaluate and therapize and worry.

Fun things from her eval:

*They try to get her to use a ruler to fish something out from under the couch and thank GOD I vacuumed this morning! So, the woman shoves the toy under and hands Rio the ruler. Rio hands it back and signs 'help'. The woman does nothing so Rio signs 'help' with great vigor and raised eyebrows. The woman still waits passively. Rio chucks the ruler in her lap and walks off. So much for that test!

*They want to know about drinking from a cup. How much spilling? How adept is she? At this time when they said 'drink' she signed it and handed one woman a water bottle. The woman said 'no' so Rio took the top off and drank it herself. With no spills. From the bottle. She passed that one!

*They give her little blocks to stack. She should be able to stack 3. She stacked 7. Twice.

Loads of other cute little Rio things. Then she tired of the women and signed for 'sleep'. I said, 'Can you wait a minute?' and she shook her head 'no' and signed 'sleep' again. So, she went down for her nap.

*siiiigh*

Same as last time. I know her so well. I know she understands and I know she's the kind of person who wants to be able to do something well before she tries it. She is very much an observer and you can see the wheels grinding in her head. I know if she had to, she could probably talk quite well. But she signs very well and that's good for her for now. I hope we don't have to beef about this in the future, but I don't want to worry about things that haven't happened yet so I'm taking a pass on this issue for now. If she couldn't sign, she'd be frustrated, and probably hungry! She would NOT have such shiny teeth and I would be seeing her sad face much more often so....

She is walking. She's made 6 months of progress in 6 months so the therapy people are pleased. I love her more and more every minute and I now understand the concept of infinity.

It's just, it's just, having professionals check out your child and check boxes and make decisions and judge her....

I wonder if we have any gin around here....