First Steps

First Steps of Northern Kentucky is an agency that offers services to children when they have some sort of medical need (PT, OT, Speech Therapy, etc.) At the request of Children's, an evaluator came yesterday to screen Brian to see if he qualifies. The woman who did the evaluation is an audiologist from Louisville. She spent about an hour and a half gathering data from me and observing Brian.

She found him to be functioning above age level! He fell into the 13 month range overall (cognitive, feeding, speech, hearing, etc.). The spectrum used to evaluate him is a range between 12 and 17 months. The most exciting result is that he is in the 50th percentile for speech. This means that even if he were 17 months old he would be speaking more than 50% of all 17 month olds! Pretty exciting :) She even commented that if he has a moderate hearing loss she will be very surprised. This was nice to hear from an audiologist who has seen him in real life action (not just in a booth). We are going to attempt to retest his hearing this coming Monday. If he were to test moderate and that was found to a conclusive result, he would automatically qualify for First Steps. It seems to be a great program, but we are obviously not hoping this is the case!

The area where he scored lowest was feeding. He is still refusing most table food and prefers Gerber 2nd foods. However, even though he was in the 9th percentile, this still means he is eating better than 9% of all 17 month olds. Brian's eating habits were an area of concern at the pediatrician's office last week as well. Dr. Price really feels Brian is making a choice, and it's not a medical issue, but he cautioned us to keep trying and monitor him for improvements. So we have been trying like crazy. It's really a matter of being more stubborn than he is according to Dr. Price.

In other news from his 12 month visit, Brian weighed in a 24 lbs 14 oz. He was still 31 1/2 inches long. His percentiles were 90 for height and head circumference and 80 for weight. Yes, that's right! Our little butterball is slimming down now that he is so much more mobile. Brian also got two shots at the doctor's visit. He cried for the first time :( I don't blame him though. The nurse missed and scratched his leg with the needle. OUCH!

Tomorrow we see a developmental pediatrician at Children's, and Thursday we see the eye doctor. Please pray for no curve balls.