Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Xander's developmental evaluation


This morning we had Xander's yearly evaluation by RISE to determine his eligibility for continued speech therapy. It actually went really well. Because James is still so ill he spent the whole time laying in my arms like a limp noodle which meant that Xander actually got to have an eval without interference from his brother! Good for Xander, not so good for poor James. But at least James has only vomited once today and while he still has diarrhea it seems to be under control for now and thankfully we have managed to keep his bum looking pretty clear. I think if he could kick this low grade fever and drink a little more he'd be feeling a lot better, but by not drinking a ton he isn't vomiting so... time will tell. We go back to the MD on Friday for a check up. But back to Xander- Emily, his speech therapist- and one of her colleagues came this morning to do Xander's eval and he was very cooperative so that was helpful as well. Basically they play with him for a little more than an hour and give him certain tasks to complete to see where he is at in 6 different developmental areas- language, cognition, gross motor, fine motor, social-emotional, and self-help. A year ago he was significantly delayed in language, mildly delayed in cognition- mostly in areas that related to language and age appropriate in all other areas. Today he continues to be age appropriate where he was before, he is now age appropriate in cognition and mostly age appropriate in language. He has really made incredible progress with his language acquisition in the six months since he has had his tubes placed- while we have encountered other obstacles with the tube, namely recurrent ear infections- it was definitely a turning point in terms of his language acquisition. So he has most of the skills that he need to be age appropriate in language some of those skills he is exhibiting in an atypical way or they are just emerging when they should be more fully formed by now. So while this is excellent news it does raise the question of whether the school will find him delayed enough to provide speech therapy once he turns 3. He will continue to receive speech therapy from RISE until then and we have a meeting schedule with the school in the beginning of April where they will determine his eligibility for preschool. He is already on the waiting list for preschool and I believe that he is high enough on that list he should be able to attend but the benefit of his requiring speech therapy would meant they would have to take him and we wouldn't have to pay tuition- if he is enrolled in preschool as a "typical" child we have to pay tuition and and he isn't guaranteed a spot in the fall. So while I thrilled that he has made such improvement I would like him to be able to attend preschool in the fall! Now we wait until April to see what the school has to say.

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