Today Lexi had her third early intervention evaluation - her first was at 4 months, her second at 17 months, and today was 29 months. It was a nice morning because the eval was done by Mary Ellen (her current PT) and Courtney (her old OT that we haven't seen in a year). The evaluation is basically a big test, where she is tested on the following skill sets: Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Cognitive, Language (expressive and receptive), Self Care and Social Emotional. In order to qualify for services at her age, she needs to be seven months behind her age.
Here's how she scored:
Cognitive - 35 months - Actually, she scored right to the top of the test. Courtney said she is sure she could have gone on, but there was nothing else to test her on. She didn't miss one test in this section! Many of the sections only require two answers, and Lexi gave even more than she needed to (example - can you put the car in, on, under, behind, etc. She only had to do two and she did all four).
Language - Receptive - 31 months and also the top of the test, Expressive - 31 months. Courtney could not give her credit for knowing that she smells with her nose, hears with her ears, etc. because she would not answer that question. She knows this information very well, and actually answered correctly for Gigi about 20 minutes later (out of earshot of the testers). In looking at the test, I know she could have scored 35 months (top of the test) had she not been silly about not answering that question.
Self Care - Average 29 months - Feeding - 33 months, Toileting - 29 months and Dressing - 26 months. I'm not concerned at all about the dressing portion of this skill set. I'm sure she could do the stuff they were asking if I ever gave her a chance...it's one of those things that I do automatically for her all the time. Courtney gave some good suggestions of ways to begin getting her into the habit of doing this stuff herself.
Social Emotional - 34 months. Courtney just laughed and said, "She's a very outgoing kid." No surprises here. :)
Fine Motor - 31 months. The two concerns in this skill set were that she drops her wrist when releasing objects. They said that this is atypical, but it is obviously not effecting her function (as she scored above her age). They noticed it when she was stacking blocks, however she only needed to stack 7, and she was able to stack 12 so they aren't concerned, but they find it interesting. Courtney also noticed that she flares her hand when she reaches out to catch herself if she looses her balance. This is an indication of increased tone, but again she says it's not affecting her function.
Gross Motor - A very surprising 31 months!! Woohoo for Lexi!! This means she has caught up and actually passed her age range! Her last eval at 17 months scored her at 13 months, so this is quite impressive. Again the concern here is the flaring of her hand when she looses balance. Another concern is the weakness in her core (abs) and the stiffness of her hamstrings. These are not surprises...we have known this for some time, and have been working on it. We are meeting with the neurologist on Monday, so it will be good to discuss these tone issues with him.
Overall it was a great evaluation. Although Lexi scored out of qualifying range, we have asked for "Clinical Judgement" which means that she can continue services until August 1st. As far as we're concerned, we may as well continue to work on these weak areas until the resources run out. I was so proud of Lexi today. She deals with these evaluations so well - she is very patient to answer so many questions, and she doesn't get frustrated by the fact that they hand her something, ask her to do something specific with it, and when she does they take it away. She's just such a good natured kid. I will certainly update again on Monday after her appointment with Dr. Raffalli.
Have a great weekend!
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