late walkers

My daughter is 17 months and not walking yet. She qualifies for and recieves physical therapy from the state once per week.

When we went to our 12 month well-child checkup, her ped asked me lots of questions about is she doing this, is she doing that, and she pretty much wasn't doing any of it. At her 9 month check up, we had had no concerns though. At 12 months, she was getting around mostly by creeping on her tummy. She could crawl, but just didn't really do it more than about 3 steps. We were referred to a PT evaluation, and from there to the state program. They said she has weak core muscles and poor balance. We were advised a few things, such as not to put shoes or socks on her at all unless absolutely necessary. To get rid of anything like a walker (the kind you sit in, not the kind you push), an exersaucer, or a jumper, and that she should only ever spend 10 minutes at a time in one if we had to use one. They also gave us specific exercises to do with her and the therapist sees her once per week at her daycare. Now, at 17 months, she is able to stand unassisted for a few seconds, and the therapist says that she will take 2 steps in therapy, though I haven't ever seen her do it myself and we work on it every night.

My daughter is also delayed in other things besides motor. She is very delayed for communication as well. She doesn't say any words, or even very many different sounds. She also doesn't do things like point to ask for things. She does not follow simple directions (ie "get the book"). She doesn't really play with toys - she would much rather rip up paper and eat it! She tested low cognitively, but it's hard to tell at this point if that is due to the lack of communication. She receives therapy from the state for these issues as well. We don't know at this point if she is "just a late bloomer" as many people like to say, or if she has other issues going on. Her pediatrician has done some blood tests for certain conditions and all have come back as normal. Now we are referred to specialists for more evaluations and tests, but it takes a long time to get in so we are just waiting for our appointments. For now, she receives therapies and we figure that even if she's "just a late bloomer", it can't hurt to give her the therapies.

One thing that the docs have emphasized to me is that if she was only delayed in one area, then they would NOT be worried about it. So if she was not walking, but she was doing everything else just fine, or if she was not talking, but doing everything else, then they would not be doing this testing. It is only because she has "global" delays that we are being tested.

hard shoes?

Sweets is 15 months old. She has motor, communication, and cognitive delays with no diagnosis yet. She sees a physical therapist and a developmental therapist.

She is cruising but not walking, but is almost always on her toes. She has weak core muscles and poor balance. Our first physical therapist told me not to put shoes on her at all, that if I had to put shoes on her they should be soft shoes (like Robeez), and that barefoot is definitely best. She said that while hard shoes might allow my daughter to walk better while in them in the short-term, that they would actually make it harder for her to develop the right muscles properly in the long-term because they do a lot of the work for her. She said to wait until my daughter was able walk well before using hard shoes. Since she told me that (over 2 months ago), my daughter has only been barefoot (hey, it's summer!).

Now, yesterday, her developmental therapist saw her and said that she strongly recommends putting hard shoes on her to help her learn to walk with flat feet. This is completely the opposite of what the other therapist said! So now I don't know what to do with this information, but I tend to favor the physical therapist over the developmental therapist since that is her specialty.

more waiting

It's hard for me not to have a diagnosis for Sweets. I just want to KNOW! I don't know why, it's not really going to change anything I don't think. I mean, she's getting her therapies now, and that's what's important. But I just want to know. It takes so long to even get in to see the specialists, and then to get the test results back. We finally got the chromosome test back after a month of waiting, and it was normal. Which is good, but we still don't know what's going on now. So now the ped referred us to the "autism clinic" even though she doesn't suspect autism. It will just get us in front of a developmental specialist. It's going to take months just to get in the door there though, so more waiting is in store for us.

Current status - 13 months

She's not really talking at all. She makes some sounds, but only "a" vowels. Mostly "ba" or "aba" or "mamama". She also squeals and she can click her tongue. She doesn't make other kinds of noises, and she certainly doesn't make words. We also sign with our kids and she isn't signing either. She seems like she is maybe right on the cusp of that now though. She will sign MILK back to me when she is nursing now, but not to ask for it yet. At least I think so - she could just be waving! Speaking of which, she also doesn't gesture, or at least she wasn't when we started this. Now she does wave, but she doesn't do it responsively. She does it when she wants attention though because she knows people will smile and wave back. Sometimes if I am trying to get her to sign something, she will start waving, so I think she knows that I want her to do something. I have recently gotten her to try to clap, though she does it with her hands crooked instead of facing each other, but I think she's getting it. She doesn't point or show us things at all. She doesn't follow instructions at all. She couldn't pick out the ball or the book from the group of toys. She does seem to know her name. She takes things out of a container but doesn't put things in. When we started, the physical therapist said she was at 5% for gross motor. She wasn't really crawling on all fours when we started - she would a little bit, but she mostly pulled herself on her belly. Now she is crawling well. She isn't walking or anything, but she does pull to standing and she is beginning to try to cruise now. The PT said that she has weak core muscles and as a result uses a wide stance in all positions. She is interested in moving around, and gets around pretty quickly though. She is definitely making good progress with her motor skills since we started PT. They placed her abilities around the 9 month level. I don't know if she is just late in developing, or if it is something more than that.

Early Intervention - We qualify

The past few weeks, well, since her 12 month well-child check, I have been taking Sweets to a ton of evals, therapies, and appointments. Her ped had asked a bunch of questions like "Is she doing this or that" and she wasn't really doing any of it, so that's how this started. So Sweets finished her evals for the state early intervention program today. She was tested with a Bayley Scales test. She qualifies under communication, motor, and cognitive. She was fine for social-emotional and adaptive. She also passed her hearing test yesterday. She is scheduled for a speech eval next month, but now they are saying maybe she is still too young for it, so that might get cancelled.

Her scores on the Bayley were 71 for communication, 79 for motor, and 80 for cognitive. The scale is: 90-109 = Average; 80-89 = low average; 70-79 = delayed; <70 = significant delay

Now that she qualifies for the program, they will find us a physical therapist and a developmental therapist, who will each see her once per week at her daycare. They use a sliding scale for payment, and when I originally looked at it I thought there is no way we qualify for this at all, but it turns out that it is your income minus taxes, daycare, and healthcare. So we do qualify to pay only 40% of what is left after insurance.