Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Evaluations

We have a service meeting scheduled at the end of this month to update Will's IFSP. So all of Will's therapists are doing their evaluations to prepare for the meeting. We have these meetings every six months to re-evaluate Will's goals for his therapy and to make sure that we are happy with all of the services that he is recieving. We have these meeting in our home with Will's service coordinator and all of his therapists.

I have bitter sweet feelings regarding these evaluations. I get excited to see how much Will has grown in his progress and to look at the things that he has accomplished during the six months. But it also makes me fully aware of how "delayed" he is compared to "typical" children his age. I know, I know, I shouldn't compare but that is what these evaluations do! Again, bitter sweet.

Today Will had his evaluation by his physical therapist, Jenny. To date, Will is 19 months and 21 days old. These are the results...

In stationary skills (skills done while sitting) he scored at 18 months.
In mobility skills he scored at 13 months. He scored low in this catagory because he is not walking yet.
In "ball" skills (skills done while playing with a ball) he scored at 15 months. He would have scored higher if he were able to kick the ball and throw the ball over handed.

All in all I think that he is doing fabulous but it still hurts my heart to be shown his delays. You know what I mean?

3 comments:

Michelle said...

sounds to me like he's not far behind age-wise! That's great! Austin (almost 6) still doesn't score much higher cause of certain skills (ball skills, writing, alphabet recog.).

Anxious AF said...

He is doing awesome! Really, that is great.

I know what you mean. I was just at Noahs basketball game and there was a baby there that is Alex's age, and I was staring at him watching him do things that Alex doesnt do, it hurts, real bad.

angie said...

Hi, my daughter Emma also has RTS. I like to think of myself as the mom with my head in the sand:)...not really, but I have some bizarre ideas about what to do with my child. When Emma was one year old my husband and I decided (we are both educators) to ask all of Em's therapists to give us her goals and at the meetings tell us which goals she has met and what her new goals are. We have asked that they don't tell us where she is in comparison to other children her age. I found that after every IFSP update I would only focus on how far behind she was, and I would get so set on "catching her up" instead of celebrating how far she had come and the next thing I needed to work with HER on. I have found that looking at her as an individual with her own "route" in life has helped me immensely. Now, I teach Kdg. and Emma is 4 1/2....I know what other kids her age are doing, but it doesn't matter to me. I'm OK with it. I just always hated those meeting where a bunch of therapists all had to tell me how far behind Em was.....she's NOT behind....she is EXACTLY where SHE is supposed to be:).

Will is such a cutie! His personality just shines. It sounds like he is really doing great! Keep up the great work:).