Monday, December 24, 2007
Comments..
I've relaxed my comment settings a bit to allow anyone to post if you do the "captcha" jumbled-text-box thing. We'll see how this works and if it doesn't cause another deluge of spam posts I'll leave it that way..
Blasted spammers, ruining the world for everyone else who just wants to make information exchange simple.
Blasted spammers, ruining the world for everyone else who just wants to make information exchange simple.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Steady Progress...
Well, Ella's still not walking, but she's getting *really* close..
She's now to the point where she'll play the game where one of us helps her walk toward the other, then lets go when she gets close. She'll usually take one or two good steps then loose her balance (at which point we catch her).
This kind of thing has been going on for a while now, but she's really improving at it. Recently we were playing this game and when I let go of her and she stopped, balanced for a second or two, then started walking towards Karla, took 3 steps, then fell into her arms. Being able to start herself moving without throwing her balance off is a very good step.
Also, about a week ago when we were playing that game she tried to stand up without holding onto anything. She got herself on her feet with her hands on my lap, pushed off and stood herself up without touching anything. Of course, she promptly toppled over and I caught her, but that was a "risky" thing to do, and it was very good to see.
She's now to the point where she'll play the game where one of us helps her walk toward the other, then lets go when she gets close. She'll usually take one or two good steps then loose her balance (at which point we catch her).
This kind of thing has been going on for a while now, but she's really improving at it. Recently we were playing this game and when I let go of her and she stopped, balanced for a second or two, then started walking towards Karla, took 3 steps, then fell into her arms. Being able to start herself moving without throwing her balance off is a very good step.
Also, about a week ago when we were playing that game she tried to stand up without holding onto anything. She got herself on her feet with her hands on my lap, pushed off and stood herself up without touching anything. Of course, she promptly toppled over and I caught her, but that was a "risky" thing to do, and it was very good to see.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Developmental Pediatrician.
As some of you know, Ella saw a developmental pediatrician from UMMC on Friday (hence forth "the doctor"). She was extrordiarily patient, observant, and made every effort to be helpful. However, in her own words "Well, I'm at a place where I can pretty much only tell you what you already know".
She spent some time discussing with us, as well as observing for her self, Ella's current abilities and behaviors.
On the plus side, she was able to confirm many of our observations, and be a bit more specific than we could be. In general the highlights of discussion where:
Autism - Ella's not showing any signs of Autism at present. Her sociability is too high for that, and we already knew this much. The doctor was also able to point out that her chances of developing autism are quite low. According to her, normally children that are sociable, but develop into autism start off with some signs of abnormal social behavior. During her observation, Ella started off being cautious toward the doctor because she was a stranger. Over a period of a half hour, Ella warmed up a bit to her and started playing near her, letting her hold her hand for walking, etc. According to the doctor, that's very normal, and children "at risk" will tend to have either really short or really long warm-up periods. The doctor still can't be 100% positive that Ella won't develop into Autism, but it's unlikely enough that she admits her gut reaction is "no, not a concern".
Cerebral Palsy - This much we already knew quite solidly, but the doctor did point out that she has no signs of Palsy. Her reflexes and muscle tone are both normal. ( Muscle tone is a reaction thing, not a strength thing, thus related to neurological health. If you suddenly straighten a child's arm, leg, whatever they'll automatically engage their muscles to protect the joint from being jolted. A child without low muscle tone will react slowly or weakly. A high tone child will react much too strongly, or may stiffen immediately.)
Metabolic Disorders - Ella's not really showing any signs of metabolic disorders, no enlarged organs, etc. However, the doctor did say she would have Ella's pediatrician review the metabolic screen she had at birth (ie: the PKU, etc they run on the heel stick), and possibly run some additional screens if some of the ones of interest weren't in her test. This is largely a precautionary measure, and the tests are simple enough to run with a small finger-prick sample of blood.
Assessment - In the process, the doctor also performed a developmental assesment, which was a different assesment tool than the E-LAP that the county used, but I forget which one. In general she came up with Ella's gross motor skills now being around 12-13 months, and her communication is much further behind. That's a bit further along than we thought in gross motor (we've been thinking around 10-11 months), but otherwise no surprise to us. As mentioned above, her social development was age appropriate, as was her cognitive and fine-motor.
Dyspraxia (aka Developmental Coordination Disorder) - This is the "working assumption" of Ella's Physical Therapist, and the doctor agreed this is a reasonable assumption. At this stage she couldn't really rule out any other problems, but that is what is evident at present.
My motor disorder - For those that don't know (which most of you do) I have some form of mild motor disorder. Unfortunately, not a whole lot is known about my disorder, largely because it was detected but deemed to mild to worry about by the neurologist I saw as a child. I can tell you that my disorder primarily affects my fine-motor skills (as anyone who's seen me write or free-hand draw will know), but it does have some lesser impacts on my gross motor and hand-eye co-ordination (as anyone who's seen me try to catch a ball will know). Obviously, since I have some kind of motor disorder, this was a significant topic of discussion since Ella is showing signs of one.
Ella is affected a bit differently than me, as mine is primarily fine motor and Ella's is primarily gross motor. However, my fine motor wasn't really noticeable until I entered school and was doing more complicated things like writing, crafts, etc. Also, I had no obvious gross motor issues at her age, as I was walking at 10 months.
Follow-up - The doctor wants to see her again in 6 months to see how she's progressing.
So, at this point, we only have some confirmation of things we knew, and possibly some additional metabolic screening. But a little confirmation is better than nothing at all.
She spent some time discussing with us, as well as observing for her self, Ella's current abilities and behaviors.
On the plus side, she was able to confirm many of our observations, and be a bit more specific than we could be. In general the highlights of discussion where:
Autism - Ella's not showing any signs of Autism at present. Her sociability is too high for that, and we already knew this much. The doctor was also able to point out that her chances of developing autism are quite low. According to her, normally children that are sociable, but develop into autism start off with some signs of abnormal social behavior. During her observation, Ella started off being cautious toward the doctor because she was a stranger. Over a period of a half hour, Ella warmed up a bit to her and started playing near her, letting her hold her hand for walking, etc. According to the doctor, that's very normal, and children "at risk" will tend to have either really short or really long warm-up periods. The doctor still can't be 100% positive that Ella won't develop into Autism, but it's unlikely enough that she admits her gut reaction is "no, not a concern".
Cerebral Palsy - This much we already knew quite solidly, but the doctor did point out that she has no signs of Palsy. Her reflexes and muscle tone are both normal. ( Muscle tone is a reaction thing, not a strength thing, thus related to neurological health. If you suddenly straighten a child's arm, leg, whatever they'll automatically engage their muscles to protect the joint from being jolted. A child without low muscle tone will react slowly or weakly. A high tone child will react much too strongly, or may stiffen immediately.)
Metabolic Disorders - Ella's not really showing any signs of metabolic disorders, no enlarged organs, etc. However, the doctor did say she would have Ella's pediatrician review the metabolic screen she had at birth (ie: the PKU, etc they run on the heel stick), and possibly run some additional screens if some of the ones of interest weren't in her test. This is largely a precautionary measure, and the tests are simple enough to run with a small finger-prick sample of blood.
Assessment - In the process, the doctor also performed a developmental assesment, which was a different assesment tool than the E-LAP that the county used, but I forget which one. In general she came up with Ella's gross motor skills now being around 12-13 months, and her communication is much further behind. That's a bit further along than we thought in gross motor (we've been thinking around 10-11 months), but otherwise no surprise to us. As mentioned above, her social development was age appropriate, as was her cognitive and fine-motor.
Dyspraxia (aka Developmental Coordination Disorder) - This is the "working assumption" of Ella's Physical Therapist, and the doctor agreed this is a reasonable assumption. At this stage she couldn't really rule out any other problems, but that is what is evident at present.
My motor disorder - For those that don't know (which most of you do) I have some form of mild motor disorder. Unfortunately, not a whole lot is known about my disorder, largely because it was detected but deemed to mild to worry about by the neurologist I saw as a child. I can tell you that my disorder primarily affects my fine-motor skills (as anyone who's seen me write or free-hand draw will know), but it does have some lesser impacts on my gross motor and hand-eye co-ordination (as anyone who's seen me try to catch a ball will know). Obviously, since I have some kind of motor disorder, this was a significant topic of discussion since Ella is showing signs of one.
Ella is affected a bit differently than me, as mine is primarily fine motor and Ella's is primarily gross motor. However, my fine motor wasn't really noticeable until I entered school and was doing more complicated things like writing, crafts, etc. Also, I had no obvious gross motor issues at her age, as I was walking at 10 months.
Follow-up - The doctor wants to see her again in 6 months to see how she's progressing.
So, at this point, we only have some confirmation of things we knew, and possibly some additional metabolic screening. But a little confirmation is better than nothing at all.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
All kinds of mobile...
Ella is now 16 months old, as of two days ago (the 19th), and her progress continues to be really good.
As mental mother reported, she's really doing well with walking with only one hand held. This is really less of and achievement in ability and more of one in confidence. Ella's been really good at walking if you hold both of her hands for a while now, so good that she barely puts weight on your hands. However, until recently she's refused to walk more than a few steps without the safety net of you holding both hands. Today, she was a little hesitant, but once you got her going she freely trucked up and down the hallway with only one helping hand.
She's also making a lot more posture transitions. Tonight while making dinner I left her standing at her "busy zoo" toy, when I came back out she was at the dining room table. This may not sound like much, but to do that, she had to get down from standing and crawl over to the table. She's been pretty resistant to getting down from standing without help, but that wasn't and obstacle tonight.
Anyway, there's a new Mythbusters on.. I best go :)
As mental mother reported, she's really doing well with walking with only one hand held. This is really less of and achievement in ability and more of one in confidence. Ella's been really good at walking if you hold both of her hands for a while now, so good that she barely puts weight on your hands. However, until recently she's refused to walk more than a few steps without the safety net of you holding both hands. Today, she was a little hesitant, but once you got her going she freely trucked up and down the hallway with only one helping hand.
She's also making a lot more posture transitions. Tonight while making dinner I left her standing at her "busy zoo" toy, when I came back out she was at the dining room table. This may not sound like much, but to do that, she had to get down from standing and crawl over to the table. She's been pretty resistant to getting down from standing without help, but that wasn't and obstacle tonight.
Anyway, there's a new Mythbusters on.. I best go :)
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Sick...
Well, Ella officially has her first cold of the winter season. It's been going around my work, and this past weekend Ella was at the gym daycare and a good-sized birthday party. Lots of opportunity to catch it, and it worked. Now we have a baby with a cold AND teething out a molar at the same time, ahh, what fun!
Actually, it's not too bad given the circumstances. She's grumpy a lot, coughing a lot, and waking up a lot, but that's kinda the way baby and toddler colds go.
Anyway, here's wishing all the little ones a speedy recovery from this round.
Actually, it's not too bad given the circumstances. She's grumpy a lot, coughing a lot, and waking up a lot, but that's kinda the way baby and toddler colds go.
Anyway, here's wishing all the little ones a speedy recovery from this round.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
A lot can happen in a month..
It's been over a month since my last update.. wow.. I really need to fill you all in more often..
Ok, so here's where we are now:
Rolling - Ella's now rolling quite a bit, although she rarely rolls completely from back to stomach to get onto her hands and knees, she will do it if there is something really exciting to motivate her. Most of the time she'll roll over onto her stomach, but keep one arm crossed under her chest and use that to flip herself back onto her back after a bit.
Cruising- Ella cruises quite a bit now, going from one piece of furniture to the next, around corners, from high to low surfaces, etc. She's also done some cruising against a sliding glass door with no help, but hasn't done a normal wall yet. (glass is a bit easier since your hands stick to it better when you press them flat to it)
Walk behind - Ella is now using a normal walk-behind toy instead of a chair. We've still got a 3lb weight in it to slow it down some, and she does it a bit hesitantly, but she does it.
Getting to standing - She now "pushes" to standing on objects that are below her shoulder height when she's tall kneeling. She's proficient at it enough now to crawl up to it, get to kneeling, then stand up pushing down on it. She still doesn't have the hang of grabbing onto things over her head and pulling up, but we're working on it.
A recent addition in standing is following this weeks PT session we've been working on having her sit on a bench, with a low table about 6" out of reach. From there, she's now comfortable standing up and thrusting herself forward to catch herself on the table. This little "leap of faith" may not seem like much, but it builds her confidence level so she'll start taking steps on her own. This trick basically took her only a day to master.. Our PT came on Tuesday, and she was doing it without hesitation on Weds..
The other activity the PT has us working on is getting her to bend over and pick things up off the floor while sitting on the bench. This is to help her build balance, and while she's definitely improving and can do it, she's not very comfortable with it yet.
Receptive Vocabulary - (ie: words she understands when you say them to her) I continue to be amazed at all the things Ella can correctly identify when asked. My most recent discovery is she knows what a rhinoceros is, or at least that the gray wooden thing with a horn on her busy zoo is one. (I've asked her on two different occasions "where's the rhinoceros" and she went straight for it..)
Speech - here there's no definitive progress, however our recent vacation has led to her getting back into babbling a lot. There's also been a few times where she might have been saying a word. Over the weekend, she grabbed a ball and made a sound like "ahwl". Which might have been random, or might have been an attempt to say ball. This kind of thing has only happened a few times, so we can't say it isn't coincidence, but we're watching for it.
Gestures and signs - Our special educator currently has us working on teaching Ella basic signs. We've been using a few for quite a number of months now, but now we have some better tactics for teaching them. At present there are few gestures of any sort that Ella does with any meaning. She reaches for things she wants. If you try to give or feed her something she doesn't want she turns her head away and puts her hands up to block you.When she's excited or happy, she claps a lot. Sometimes she does claps when she's bored to entertain herself, but that's less common. She also shakes her head "no" sometimes, but that's always simply because shaking her head is fun. She doesn't associate the gesture with "no".
Well, I best get some sleep, hope you've enjoyed the news..
Ok, so here's where we are now:
Rolling - Ella's now rolling quite a bit, although she rarely rolls completely from back to stomach to get onto her hands and knees, she will do it if there is something really exciting to motivate her. Most of the time she'll roll over onto her stomach, but keep one arm crossed under her chest and use that to flip herself back onto her back after a bit.
Cruising- Ella cruises quite a bit now, going from one piece of furniture to the next, around corners, from high to low surfaces, etc. She's also done some cruising against a sliding glass door with no help, but hasn't done a normal wall yet. (glass is a bit easier since your hands stick to it better when you press them flat to it)
Walk behind - Ella is now using a normal walk-behind toy instead of a chair. We've still got a 3lb weight in it to slow it down some, and she does it a bit hesitantly, but she does it.
Getting to standing - She now "pushes" to standing on objects that are below her shoulder height when she's tall kneeling. She's proficient at it enough now to crawl up to it, get to kneeling, then stand up pushing down on it. She still doesn't have the hang of grabbing onto things over her head and pulling up, but we're working on it.
A recent addition in standing is following this weeks PT session we've been working on having her sit on a bench, with a low table about 6" out of reach. From there, she's now comfortable standing up and thrusting herself forward to catch herself on the table. This little "leap of faith" may not seem like much, but it builds her confidence level so she'll start taking steps on her own. This trick basically took her only a day to master.. Our PT came on Tuesday, and she was doing it without hesitation on Weds..
The other activity the PT has us working on is getting her to bend over and pick things up off the floor while sitting on the bench. This is to help her build balance, and while she's definitely improving and can do it, she's not very comfortable with it yet.
Receptive Vocabulary - (ie: words she understands when you say them to her) I continue to be amazed at all the things Ella can correctly identify when asked. My most recent discovery is she knows what a rhinoceros is, or at least that the gray wooden thing with a horn on her busy zoo is one. (I've asked her on two different occasions "where's the rhinoceros" and she went straight for it..)
Speech - here there's no definitive progress, however our recent vacation has led to her getting back into babbling a lot. There's also been a few times where she might have been saying a word. Over the weekend, she grabbed a ball and made a sound like "ahwl". Which might have been random, or might have been an attempt to say ball. This kind of thing has only happened a few times, so we can't say it isn't coincidence, but we're watching for it.
Gestures and signs - Our special educator currently has us working on teaching Ella basic signs. We've been using a few for quite a number of months now, but now we have some better tactics for teaching them. At present there are few gestures of any sort that Ella does with any meaning. She reaches for things she wants. If you try to give or feed her something she doesn't want she turns her head away and puts her hands up to block you.When she's excited or happy, she claps a lot. Sometimes she does claps when she's bored to entertain herself, but that's less common. She also shakes her head "no" sometimes, but that's always simply because shaking her head is fun. She doesn't associate the gesture with "no".
Well, I best get some sleep, hope you've enjoyed the news..
Friday, October 5, 2007
Progress, Progress, Progress..
Whew.. it's been a month since my last update! I've definitely been too busy..
Those who have been following mentalmother know that Ella started crawling on September 14th, 3 weeks ago today. Since then, Ella's been an explosion of progress.
So far Ella has picked up the following new motor skills:
Cruising - We've had her cruise short distances on the couch, that was new this past weekend. She doesn't do this often, but if motivated to get a toy she will creep her way sideways to get it without any help other than the couch itself.
Walk-behind - On Tuesday, Ella was walking in straight lines across the kitchen by pushing her music table around. (with nobody touching her or the table) This has a bit more resistance than your normal wheeled walk-behind, which makes it a bit easier.
We're still working on pulling up to standing (although she can pull up to kneeling..), and of course we're now working on refining our walking/cruising skills. She's also very confident walking if you hold both of her hands, but doesn't walk if you hold just one. (She's been doing this kind of for about 2 months now, but we'd been holding off practice to get her to learn crawling and pulling-up.)
On the communication front, Ella still isn't talking, although recently she does seem to point and me and say some variant of "da" which the D is a weird mix of D, T and TH sounds.. However, that's hard to distinguish from her general babbling. She makes da, ta, and ba sounds an awful lot these days.. But it is still quite cute when she looks me in the eye, grabs my nose, promptly says "tha da" and grins.
There are now 31 words that we are sure she knows the meaning of. Most of these are nouns she can point out if you ask her where they are, or verbs that she'll act out. It is likely there are many other words she knows from her books that we've never thought to test her on, but overall this is good.
Of the 31, four of her words are colors that she'll reliably point out something of that color if you ask (red, blue, purple, green). We also think she's gotten the concept of "my ear" versus "your ear", but we're not sure of these so we didn't count them.
Those who have been following mentalmother know that Ella started crawling on September 14th, 3 weeks ago today. Since then, Ella's been an explosion of progress.
So far Ella has picked up the following new motor skills:
Cruising - We've had her cruise short distances on the couch, that was new this past weekend. She doesn't do this often, but if motivated to get a toy she will creep her way sideways to get it without any help other than the couch itself.
Walk-behind - On Tuesday, Ella was walking in straight lines across the kitchen by pushing her music table around. (with nobody touching her or the table) This has a bit more resistance than your normal wheeled walk-behind, which makes it a bit easier.
We're still working on pulling up to standing (although she can pull up to kneeling..), and of course we're now working on refining our walking/cruising skills. She's also very confident walking if you hold both of her hands, but doesn't walk if you hold just one. (She's been doing this kind of for about 2 months now, but we'd been holding off practice to get her to learn crawling and pulling-up.)
On the communication front, Ella still isn't talking, although recently she does seem to point and me and say some variant of "da" which the D is a weird mix of D, T and TH sounds.. However, that's hard to distinguish from her general babbling. She makes da, ta, and ba sounds an awful lot these days.. But it is still quite cute when she looks me in the eye, grabs my nose, promptly says "tha da" and grins.
There are now 31 words that we are sure she knows the meaning of. Most of these are nouns she can point out if you ask her where they are, or verbs that she'll act out. It is likely there are many other words she knows from her books that we've never thought to test her on, but overall this is good.
Of the 31, four of her words are colors that she'll reliably point out something of that color if you ask (red, blue, purple, green). We also think she's gotten the concept of "my ear" versus "your ear", but we're not sure of these so we didn't count them.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Labor day update..
Whew, we had quite a full long weekend, and Ella got to see many people.
On Saturday friends P & B stopped by with their 23 month-old son and we grilled out some burgers. Ella had lots of fun watching their son use her toys in new ways, and seems to have learned a thing or two from him.
On Sunday we drove off to visit Ella's grand uncle/aunt, along with two of her first cousins once removed (my wife's first cousins) and five of her second cousins (their children). (could you keep track of all that?) That was a great deal of fun, but it was quite a loud scene with 5 children ranging from 12 months to 10 years old running around.
Today we went over to visit Ella's aunt (my sister), uncle and 20 month old cousin. Also lots of fun, and her cousin was very excited to see her. ("Ella... Ella.... Ella...")
Progress-wise we did well this weekend. Today her uncle managed to get her to stand by herself for a new record length of time, about 5 seconds. Her previous record was about a half second long. :) I also helped her "crawl" in the kitchen today by holding her hands to the floor while she dragged herself along on her stomach. We've done this "crawling" before, but in the past she got very upset about it, but today she was content when we started out (she became irritable after a while of working at it).
She was also generally much more active and excitable than normal this weekend. Lots of clambering around on us, splashing around in the tub, etc..
Overall it's been fun. But man am I tired now.. ZZZzzz...
On Saturday friends P & B stopped by with their 23 month-old son and we grilled out some burgers. Ella had lots of fun watching their son use her toys in new ways, and seems to have learned a thing or two from him.
On Sunday we drove off to visit Ella's grand uncle/aunt, along with two of her first cousins once removed (my wife's first cousins) and five of her second cousins (their children). (could you keep track of all that?) That was a great deal of fun, but it was quite a loud scene with 5 children ranging from 12 months to 10 years old running around.
Today we went over to visit Ella's aunt (my sister), uncle and 20 month old cousin. Also lots of fun, and her cousin was very excited to see her. ("Ella... Ella.... Ella...")
Progress-wise we did well this weekend. Today her uncle managed to get her to stand by herself for a new record length of time, about 5 seconds. Her previous record was about a half second long. :) I also helped her "crawl" in the kitchen today by holding her hands to the floor while she dragged herself along on her stomach. We've done this "crawling" before, but in the past she got very upset about it, but today she was content when we started out (she became irritable after a while of working at it).
She was also generally much more active and excitable than normal this weekend. Lots of clambering around on us, splashing around in the tub, etc..
Overall it's been fun. But man am I tired now.. ZZZzzz...
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Progress, mostly in food
As noted over on MentalMother, Ella's been making very good progress at eating solids. In the past we've had a lot of off-again on-again gagging problems, but we've never seen her do as well as she did this past weekend.
Friday, Karla tried giving her some chicken that had been crock-pot cooked, and ella ate it fine.
Saturday, I tried cottage cheese, which has been a long-term problem for her due to its mixed texture. She ate it fine at multiple feedings.
Sunday I had her double-fisting puffs and cheerios in the afternoon, and Sunday night we went out to dinner and she had several different foods off our plates (grilled chicken, broccoli, mashed potatoes, spinach in a cream sauce..)
Overall it was a good weekend, and her eagerness Sunday night to just keep munching down new things was really great.
On the motor front, Ella's continuing to have good progress. She's been continuing to roll without help on occasion, and is also doing a lot of work on climbing onto our laps. She's not very proficient at the climbing, but she tries it a lot.
On the communication front, Ella's doing a fair amount of multi-syllable babbling, and seems to be trying to say "duck" a lot, although it comes out more like "adook". She's also clearly understanding several words and phrases and a few commands, and the list keeps growing. She knows how to "turn the page", and can find a few body parts (although some she always does herself, and others she always does you.. i.e.: it is always her ear, but your nose, no matter which you really asked about.)
We're continuing to work with the PT for her gross motor on a weekly basis. We're also meeting less frequently (monthly or so) with an OT for her eating, and a special educator for her communications and other more general advice.
Friday, Karla tried giving her some chicken that had been crock-pot cooked, and ella ate it fine.
Saturday, I tried cottage cheese, which has been a long-term problem for her due to its mixed texture. She ate it fine at multiple feedings.
Sunday I had her double-fisting puffs and cheerios in the afternoon, and Sunday night we went out to dinner and she had several different foods off our plates (grilled chicken, broccoli, mashed potatoes, spinach in a cream sauce..)
Overall it was a good weekend, and her eagerness Sunday night to just keep munching down new things was really great.
On the motor front, Ella's continuing to have good progress. She's been continuing to roll without help on occasion, and is also doing a lot of work on climbing onto our laps. She's not very proficient at the climbing, but she tries it a lot.
On the communication front, Ella's doing a fair amount of multi-syllable babbling, and seems to be trying to say "duck" a lot, although it comes out more like "adook". She's also clearly understanding several words and phrases and a few commands, and the list keeps growing. She knows how to "turn the page", and can find a few body parts (although some she always does herself, and others she always does you.. i.e.: it is always her ear, but your nose, no matter which you really asked about.)
We're continuing to work with the PT for her gross motor on a weekly basis. We're also meeting less frequently (monthly or so) with an OT for her eating, and a special educator for her communications and other more general advice.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Dr.'s visit...
Today Ella had her 1 year Dr.'s visit (yeah, she's almost 13 months..). That all went well, and about the only news from it is that Ella's still almost dead-on 50th percentile in all of the basic measures. Her weight was just a tad over 50th, and is now just a tad under, but given her increased activity level that's not abnormal.
For those who are interested, Ella is now:
29" long
20lbs 12.8oz in weight
and 17 3/4" of head circumference
For those who are interested, Ella is now:
29" long
20lbs 12.8oz in weight
and 17 3/4" of head circumference
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Thoughts of the day..
At present, and for the past couple days, all three of us have been suffering through various degrees and stages of the same cold. Ella caught it first, then Kar, and now I seem to be coming down with it too. Yay, rhinovirus!
Today was a good day in general for Ella. Although she has done it a couple times before, today I had her take several steps while all I did was help her keep balance. This is definitely much improved, since a mere 3 weeks ago she had a strong habit of keeping one leg completely stiff while trying to walk. (Which leg she kept stiff would change, but she'd consistently do it with one leg or the other).
Ella also tried experimenting with pulling herself up from being seated flat on the floor, but wasn't successful. That said, it is good she's getting the idea, and we'll have to work on teaching her proper footing.
This whole weekend Ella's been quite vocal and babbling a lot, although it is still single-syllable (ma-ma-ma or ba-ba-ba, etc). Her babbling like this is nothing new, but I would say that she did it substantially more than normal this weekend.
The whole cold thing has been messing with her daytime naps and eating a little bit, but nothing alarming. She was being a bit reluctant with solids that involve chewing, but today she was back to eagerly eating puffs, bits of cheese, etc.
Anyway, I hope you're all doing well.
Today was a good day in general for Ella. Although she has done it a couple times before, today I had her take several steps while all I did was help her keep balance. This is definitely much improved, since a mere 3 weeks ago she had a strong habit of keeping one leg completely stiff while trying to walk. (Which leg she kept stiff would change, but she'd consistently do it with one leg or the other).
Ella also tried experimenting with pulling herself up from being seated flat on the floor, but wasn't successful. That said, it is good she's getting the idea, and we'll have to work on teaching her proper footing.
This whole weekend Ella's been quite vocal and babbling a lot, although it is still single-syllable (ma-ma-ma or ba-ba-ba, etc). Her babbling like this is nothing new, but I would say that she did it substantially more than normal this weekend.
The whole cold thing has been messing with her daytime naps and eating a little bit, but nothing alarming. She was being a bit reluctant with solids that involve chewing, but today she was back to eagerly eating puffs, bits of cheese, etc.
Anyway, I hope you're all doing well.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
A starting point...
For those of you who haven't been following Mental Mother, or speaking to me in person, let me catch you up a bit.
Our daughter Ella is currently 1 year old, and has some developmental delays. A lot of this blog, for the time being, is going to be involved in communicating her progress to friends and family.
She's been evaluated by the local early intervention program sponsored by the school system. The evaluation shoes she has some developmental delays, most significantly in gross motor development (ie: skills involving large movements of the body like crawling, walking, etc). She also has a less substantial delay in communication skills (the ELAP test winds up placing the delays in multiple categories, however the cause of all of them would appear to be communication. See mental mother for more details on this)
Her fine motor development is fine and tested as age appropriate. For her age she has a good "pincer grasp" and hand-eye coordination, etc. Ella also tested fine in cognitive development and problem solving skills. Also, baring being tired, she is quite sociable and enjoys playing with people. There is occasional stranger anxiety, but she generally plays with "strangers" if we're nearby and are calm.
Although not definite, as only time will tell, based on the above Ella's delays are probably not the result of any major disorders. (ie: she's got good cognition and problem solving, so she's probably not mentally retarded, add in her sociable nature and she's not likely on any severe part of the autistic spectrum. Her fine motor development suggests there's no broad palsy or cerebellum issues.)
Thus far she has been responding very well to her current therapy sessions for gross motor development. We've met with a with a physical therapist 3 times, including her assessment visit, but even at the initial assessment the PT left us with some suggested activities to work on.
In general, Ella has good strength development, and to quote the PT "many good building blocks" for gross motor skills, but several other basic skills are missing.
Prior to starting, some of the building blocks Ella already had are: Standing while holding onto things, rolling onto her side to grab toys (but never a full roll, nor a roll off of the stomach), and grabbing onto your hands and using them to pull herself up to sitting.
Right at the start of her eval, but before we'd worked with the PT, she also learned to:
- extend the pulling up on your hands to pull herself up, stiff-legged, into a standing position.
- while sitting, if you put your hands on her shoulder blades and braced her from flipping over backwards she could push herself up to standing with leg power alone. However, even faced with something to grab onto, she'd leave her hands at her sides.
(Neither of those is a useful skill alone, but if you combine them...)
Thus far we have been working on the following things with the PT:
1) Rolling. Ella originally rolled both ways on-time, but stopped shortly after she started. Very quickly she regained the ability to roll if you simply moved one hand into the right place (in front of her, and slightly off-center towards the opposite side.) Recently she started doing this without our help.
2) Deeply bending over to reach toys. We've been teaching Ella how to pull one foot in so she's sitting in a "figure 4" so she can bend deeply to extend her reach from sitting.
3) Tolerating "tummy time" - Ella has always hated being on her stomach. We're now doing things to help her not immediately become upset if placed on her stomach. Little things like always putting her down on her stomach, even if we roll her over right away. This appears to be working well. Even though she still sometimes immediately objects to being on her stomach, she does now generally tolerate it, at least for a little while (ie: 1 minute), and sometimes for more extended periods (ie: 15-20 minutes).
4) Pulling up to standing from an elevated seat. If you sit "Indian style" on the floor and sit Ella on your knee with her feet on the floor, she can grab onto an object nearby and pull herself up to standing. We started off aiding her by bouncing her a bit, but she can now do this with no aid.
5) Kneeling. We're spending time getting her used to playing while kneeling, as this get her used to a position that is important in a lot of transition movements. She seems to do fine with this, although she does eventually tire of it.
6) "plopping" to sit - This is mostly an exercise in getting Ella to realize that not all forms of falling from standing are painful. I've been successful with this a few times, but most attempts result in her resisting by "stiff-boarding" her back or pulling herself back up to stand.
7) shifting from lying down to sitting. This is also one we're still working on. The idea is you tuck one foot up under their butt, and grab their shoulder and sit them up and over it. Today, I was playing around with Ella's feet working on crawling oriented skills. I had pushed her foot up near her butt, intending to put both there and shift her onto her knees. At that point she walked her self up with her hands and got into the sitting position without any help other than my placement of her foot.
Side note for humor: Amidst my research on delays, autism, etc, I found a self-test for Asperger's Syndrome (one of the autism spectrum disorders that is closest to full classic autism). An "average" person scores 16, mathematically inclined folks tend to score a bit over 20, and people with autism tend to score over 32. I scored a 25. I guess that means I'm nerdy, but just an ordinary nerd :)
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=1982215450153908026
Anyway, g'nite all.
Our daughter Ella is currently 1 year old, and has some developmental delays. A lot of this blog, for the time being, is going to be involved in communicating her progress to friends and family.
She's been evaluated by the local early intervention program sponsored by the school system. The evaluation shoes she has some developmental delays, most significantly in gross motor development (ie: skills involving large movements of the body like crawling, walking, etc). She also has a less substantial delay in communication skills (the ELAP test winds up placing the delays in multiple categories, however the cause of all of them would appear to be communication. See mental mother for more details on this)
Her fine motor development is fine and tested as age appropriate. For her age she has a good "pincer grasp" and hand-eye coordination, etc. Ella also tested fine in cognitive development and problem solving skills. Also, baring being tired, she is quite sociable and enjoys playing with people. There is occasional stranger anxiety, but she generally plays with "strangers" if we're nearby and are calm.
Although not definite, as only time will tell, based on the above Ella's delays are probably not the result of any major disorders. (ie: she's got good cognition and problem solving, so she's probably not mentally retarded, add in her sociable nature and she's not likely on any severe part of the autistic spectrum. Her fine motor development suggests there's no broad palsy or cerebellum issues.)
Thus far she has been responding very well to her current therapy sessions for gross motor development. We've met with a with a physical therapist 3 times, including her assessment visit, but even at the initial assessment the PT left us with some suggested activities to work on.
In general, Ella has good strength development, and to quote the PT "many good building blocks" for gross motor skills, but several other basic skills are missing.
Prior to starting, some of the building blocks Ella already had are: Standing while holding onto things, rolling onto her side to grab toys (but never a full roll, nor a roll off of the stomach), and grabbing onto your hands and using them to pull herself up to sitting.
Right at the start of her eval, but before we'd worked with the PT, she also learned to:
- extend the pulling up on your hands to pull herself up, stiff-legged, into a standing position.
- while sitting, if you put your hands on her shoulder blades and braced her from flipping over backwards she could push herself up to standing with leg power alone. However, even faced with something to grab onto, she'd leave her hands at her sides.
(Neither of those is a useful skill alone, but if you combine them...)
Thus far we have been working on the following things with the PT:
1) Rolling. Ella originally rolled both ways on-time, but stopped shortly after she started. Very quickly she regained the ability to roll if you simply moved one hand into the right place (in front of her, and slightly off-center towards the opposite side.) Recently she started doing this without our help.
2) Deeply bending over to reach toys. We've been teaching Ella how to pull one foot in so she's sitting in a "figure 4" so she can bend deeply to extend her reach from sitting.
3) Tolerating "tummy time" - Ella has always hated being on her stomach. We're now doing things to help her not immediately become upset if placed on her stomach. Little things like always putting her down on her stomach, even if we roll her over right away. This appears to be working well. Even though she still sometimes immediately objects to being on her stomach, she does now generally tolerate it, at least for a little while (ie: 1 minute), and sometimes for more extended periods (ie: 15-20 minutes).
4) Pulling up to standing from an elevated seat. If you sit "Indian style" on the floor and sit Ella on your knee with her feet on the floor, she can grab onto an object nearby and pull herself up to standing. We started off aiding her by bouncing her a bit, but she can now do this with no aid.
5) Kneeling. We're spending time getting her used to playing while kneeling, as this get her used to a position that is important in a lot of transition movements. She seems to do fine with this, although she does eventually tire of it.
6) "plopping" to sit - This is mostly an exercise in getting Ella to realize that not all forms of falling from standing are painful. I've been successful with this a few times, but most attempts result in her resisting by "stiff-boarding" her back or pulling herself back up to stand.
7) shifting from lying down to sitting. This is also one we're still working on. The idea is you tuck one foot up under their butt, and grab their shoulder and sit them up and over it. Today, I was playing around with Ella's feet working on crawling oriented skills. I had pushed her foot up near her butt, intending to put both there and shift her onto her knees. At that point she walked her self up with her hands and got into the sitting position without any help other than my placement of her foot.
Side note for humor: Amidst my research on delays, autism, etc, I found a self-test for Asperger's Syndrome (one of the autism spectrum disorders that is closest to full classic autism). An "average" person scores 16, mathematically inclined folks tend to score a bit over 20, and people with autism tend to score over 32. I scored a 25. I guess that means I'm nerdy, but just an ordinary nerd :)
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=1982215450153908026
Anyway, g'nite all.
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