Thursday, October 2, 2008

When i first started noticing things.

I'm a stay at home mom, so naturally i spend most of my time with Presley and get to observer her more than anyone else. I think what caught my attention and i knew something wasn't right, was when she wasn't able to sit up. All my friends children where sitting up way before she was, some even 6 months younger! She was also about 9 months old and not holding her own bottle, hardly doing any of the normal baby babble but i think the shinning example was what i call her "crab walk". When she was finally able to sit up, she preferred to lay on the floor and shake toys back and forth, or stare at fans or moving objects. She had NO eye contact at that time (this is around 16 months or so) and NEVER wanted myself or my husbands attention/affection.

At her 16 month check-up her pediatrician suggested we should think about early intervention, but in the mean time we should have an MRI done. Presley's head was out growing her body. Her body, at the time, was in the 20% while her head had shot up (in 2 weeks) all the way to the 90%. There was concern that she may have fluid on the brain or a tethered spinal cord. I was terrified. Of course, now we know it's just a developmental delay and there's no real reason for her head growth, though shes "grown into it." Weight, height and head size are all within normal average ranges.

So i started doing lots of Internet research and had read that some children have developmental delays due to food/allergies. Her pediatrician agreed and we had a allergy scratch test done. Nothing. No allergies what-so-ever.

Finally we started therapy. In OT we did spinning, Listening therapy and brushing. All with no results, all consistently for 6 months.

We've been doing speech for the last year. We've made great improvement and have got presley to use some sign language and slightly mimic sounds.

This week we've actually started Educational therapy, which hopefully we'll be working with eating/speech, which are my two man concerns right now.

What we have coming up is the initial evaluation for the Feeding Program at the children's hospital of Richmond November 20th.

Then we have her Autism "testing" with the Autism clinic at VTCC, March 5th 2009.

I think I've pretty much caught up everything. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but whatever.

1 comment:

me said...

AJ's head was way off the charts as a little one too. There is something to that I am sure. Now it is just a bit bigger than average but she grew into it.