Lexi recently had a comprehensive evaluation done to assess her physical and cognitive development at 16 months of age. After being discharged from the NICU, Lexi had been referred to a governmental program in Missouri which assesses kids' development and then recommends therapy as appropriate. We had an initial assessment, and this was the year follow-up to that to see how she was progressing. We just got the test results back today, and here is the e-mail which communicated them to us, verbatim:
"Sorry I didn’t respond sooner but I was out of town on Tuesday thru Thursday of this week. Alexis’ ELAP scores were as follows:
GM 11 months
FM 12 months
Cog 13 months
Lang 13 months
SH 16 months
SE 12 months
No significant delays (which in my mind would be 6 months or greater delay in one or more areas) and PAT visits 1 time monthly; however, team could consider special instruction one time monthly to compliment what PAT is discussing and provide extra attention to overall developmental areas. I should be able to start this report on Monday afternoon. Call me if you have any other questions or need more detailed information. Thanks.
We're so proud of our girl's SH, and we appreciate the great Cog-Lang strides she's made, but realize we need to continue to work hard on her FM-GM. But we're biased parents... what do you guys think of these results?
What, you don't understand all of those acronyms and categories clearly? Well that makes two of us. We appreciate the evaluation, but frankly these results are virtually meaningless to someone without physical therapy training, or without an encyclopedia of acronyms at their fingertips. This was about as helpful as a tax advisor speaking in IRS code or an attorney speaking in nothing but case precedents and Latin phrases. But I guess the results are not completely meaningless, as we can do the math to see how close she is to 16-months, and then draw our own conclusions from there.
Then again, maybe this was a blessing in disguise. After complaining frequently about our daughter being over-analyzed, perhaps it's best all we can do with these results is conclude she's slightly delayed in some areas, but overall is making great progress without any 'significant delays.' The temptation is there to ask several follow-up questions to better understand these results and our daughter's development. However, instead maybe this time we'll just sit back and celebrate the fact that a child development expert finally deemed Lexi something close to normal for her age! Sarcasm aside, though, we really are thrilled to see the progress she's made in the last few months in her Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Cognitive, Language, Self Help, and Socio-Emotional skills and are excited to find ourselves in a much different place than a year ago or even 6-months ago.
Lexi stayed with her first babysitter, at least first that wasn't a family member. Laura went to see her brother's family for her niece's birthday this weekend while Brian went to cheer Iowa on to a 10-2 record. On Friday night, Beckett and Lexi stayed with Courtney, one of Beck's regular babysitter while the rest of us went to a high school production of Into the Woods. Lexi didn't even cry when we left, and Courtney said she was well behaved, which was good. Looks like we need to start finding babysitters.
We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with cousins, playing outside in the beautiful weather, and going to eat at a Japanese steakhouse. Lexi and Beck enjoyed their rides in the car and the wagon and are starting to have some of the same interests.
