Early Intervention

The Big D had his early intervention evaluation last week to see if there is a reason why at 16 months he isn’t standing or walking. Specifically we were looking at the issue of standing and not putting any weight on his legs.

During the hour long evaluation several things were noticed by the occupational therapist. Little things that the big D does that I hadn’t noticed before. The most obvious was the way he crawls. He crawls with his feet in the air. He also crawls with his wrists in a strange position. The second is that although he is showing signs of putting some pressure on his feet, it is pretty obvious that it is uncomfortable for him.

When I was young, I remember being able to put my feet in positions that none of my friends could. I could bend my wrists farther back then anyone else. The term the doctor used was hyper flexibility. It appears that my son takes after his mommy. He may even be more hyper flexible then I was. The good news is that if he wants to run away and join the circus, he should have no trouble getting a job. The bad news is that he is going to need to work harder then others on his gross motor skilss.

The occupational therapist showed me a couple of different exercises that I can do to with Big D to help him gain some muscle control. I am happy to report that I think they are working. True, it has only been a week and perhaps I am just being overly optimistic but it does seem like Big D is getting some confidence to stand.

I do have a gripe with the early intervention folks. After our initial evaluation, which was a brief hour in which Big D took awhile to warm up to them, they told our pediatrician that they felt Big D should see a pediatric orthopedic and go to Children’s Hospital in Seattle. I have such mixed feelings about this. Of course if there is anything wrong with my child, I will spare no expense and take him to the best doctors possible. However, I also feel like the early intervention folks might be jumping the gun. They said that Big D’s feet were highly sensitive and that he wouldn’t put any weight on them at all. This is wrong. He didn’t like two strangers playing with his feet during the evaluation. He puts some pressure on his feet and he doesn’t show any sensitivity at home. I feel as if the early intervention folks need to spend more time with Big D before making such huge recommendations.

I don’t know. It might be mistake, but for now we are going to try the physical/occupational therapy only. If we don’t see any improvement in the next couple of months, we will then look at having Big D see a pediatric orthopedic.

I try to make Big D’s exercises a game. We play every day and each day he seems a little stronger. Hopefully soon he will be able to stand on his own.