Seth has made a few leaps in his developmental milestones since the last post. He is now walking (up to 16 steps at a time!), can chew soft solid foods like bananas and carrots, and likes to make a "h-sh" sound.
As mentioned previously, Seth's neurologist referred us to ECI (Early Childhood Interventions) to see if he would qualify for any services. We met last week with our case manager to answer background questions. Today our case manager and physical therapist came out to do an evaluation on him. The evaluation encompasses a wide range of skills and takes about an hour and a half (at least in our case) to complete. The areas Seth was tested on today included: personal-social, adaptive, fine and gross motor, communication, and cognitive abilities. Our case manager and physical therapist ran through a battery of tests with him and asked us questions to decide his score in each area. As there were quite a lot of areas tested, I had a hard time keeping up with some of the scoring, but I will do my best to share what I retained.
In personal-social skills, Seth scored at 13 months. We were told that he is interacting quite well with those around him, so there was no deficit in this area. Fine and gross motor skills were averaged together for a total score of 11 months. He had a slight deficit in fine motor skills due to his "messy" pincer grasp. Since he is already walking, that put him ahead of the curve in gross motor skills. However, he will be receiving PT services to help with his balance and strength while standing and crawling. We have been given a goal to help Seth learn to crawl rather than hop. The other two goals were for him to be able to stand up without pulling up onto anything and to walk at least ten feet. Both of these goals should be met by January.
Seth scored at 9 1/2 months in communication. His receptive communication was above average at 11 months, but his expressive communication scored at 8 months. Again, both were averaged together. Since Seth understands certain commands such as "no; stop; come here", he scored high in receptive communication. He still does not copy sounds that we make, so this brought his expressive score down. He has a goal to begin producing consonant sounds and waving hi and bye. For his cognitive abilities, he scored at 8 months simply because he has not mastered object permanence yet. Josh and I have been working on this skill since he was six months old with no success, so we are anxious to be given ideas to help him master this skill. He scored right on target at 10 months in the adaptive area. I really don't remember what this area entails, but he has no deficit in this area.
We will begin meeting once a week beginning next Tuesday to address his PT and communication/cognitive needs. Everything should be reassessed in January. Most of the services he will be receiving seem to be preventive rather than greatly needed. Since Seth has the infantile spasm diagnosis, he automatically qualifies for the services. Our case manager wanted to go ahead and sign him up for services to keep him on track. She doesn't want to risk him regressing backwards. Josh and I are anxious to begin learning what we can do at home to help him meet these goals. We are both excited to be learning ways to help him!
All the kind gestures, comments, and thoughts over the last few months have been greatly appreciated. Josh and I feel that your support has been integral in helping us to stay positive. Thank you so much!
