Another Year, Another Evaluation

Dr. Sharon Butcher, Pediatric Neurodevelopmental Specialist

Today was Abby's three-year checkup with the pediatric neurodevelopmental specialist and the physical therapist. She actually really enjoys these exams because even though they're evaluating her, to her it seems like they're playing with her. They have her stack blocks, manipulate pegs, look at pictures, play with cars, jump over lines on the ground, walk up stairs, run down the hallway, etc. What kid wouldn't enjoy that?

But since we were actually there to discover her progress, it was nice to learn the results of all this "play." In regard to her cognitive skills, Dr. Butcher's words were, "As far as my tests, she aced them!" Praise God!! She is a bright little girl, and the doctor was very impressed with how fabulous she is doing. Her only difficult area was in counting, but she's three...so who knows if it's because of a delay or if it's because she's three.

The physical therapist had a few concerns, but they really don't know the reason for some of the findings. She is hyperreflexive, meaning her reflexes are incredibly "brisk," she over responds to the tapping. She also gave us some stretches to do on her ankles because her muscle tone is pretty tight in that area. She has an "interesting" gait, which they have mentioned before. She also recommended some dance or gymnastics classes for her to help improve some of her motor planning and to "burn off some of that energy." We have already been investigating the gymnastics classes available in our area and plan to start that very soon.

Although we already knew that she probably has at least some mild dyspraxia (also known as Clumsy Child Syndrome), it looks like she may be manifesting some signs of it in her verbal skills as well. So the doctor recommended a speech evaulation. We postponed it last year, but it looks like we'll be doing it now. Also, as we already knew, she has some sensory integration dysfunction and some behavior problems due to fetal alcohol effects. Though this all sounds ominous and complicated, she's really doing better than either we or the doctors anticipated. To quote my hubby, "The bad news is she has problems, but the good news is she's doing great for the problems she has!" Best of all, instead of the usual yearly (or more frequent) evaluations, we were put on an as-needed basis! So unless we have concerns, there's no need for us to return. What a great report!