Gracie's Evaluation

This morning was Gracie's EI evaluation for speech and OT. The speech therapist and occupational therapist came at 9 so I had to wake the girls up early (we are still transitioning from the daylight savings switch). My Mom arrived right in time for the meeting so I had another set of hands. Gracie was tentative but very well behaved. Almost made a liar out of me by sitting still for almost a full hour to do the testing.

Long story short she does need ST and OT. We will begin with speech therapy right away and the speech therapist will work on her OT issues for now. If we need to add a separate OT we might have to. Her motor skills are that of a 16 month old. Her socio-emotional level was between 14 and 21 months mostly because she has attentional issues. Her overall sensory age level is only 11 months... to which I thought, oh great, here we go with ADHD. Her receptive language skills are at 17 months but her expressive language lags at only 10 months. Her self-help and fine motor skills are also at 16 months.

All in all she has obvious language and communications delays. Her sensory issues and motor issues may be due to motor planning difficulty. They gave me some great strategies to work with for language and sensory until we can get a therapist in. They told us that the signing is in no way impacting her speech delays. If anything it will help her motor planning. They will get us a therapist who not only can handle the OT and ST but can also sign. That should be good.

So as it sinks in a little I am sad. I am sad that both of my children need all this extra help. I know, I know... it could be SO much worse. I just don't know if people get how hard it is to watch things be so difficult for your child. Watching one who wants to walk so bad and can't. Then the other cries every time she tries to say something. It hurts. It makes me sad. I know in ten years it will all seem like a distant memory but for right now it just sucks.