Happy Friday!

It's been a very long week with Angel being sick and dealing with the ups and downs that come with potty training so when I was handed a copy of Sweet Pea's latest testing results, I was more than a little nervous.  Did I want to read them or should I put them in a drawer until the new year.  If you know me, you know that I can't put them in a drawer so as soon as I got home and got the kids settled I pulled them out and pulled out the last test to do a comparison.  This test puts age equivalents to Sweet Pea's skills in a variety of areas.  It's sometimes extremely heartbreaking to read because while I know that Sweet Pea is delayed, seeing how delayed right there in black and white is rough.  There are often times when I am surprised by how far behind she is in a certain area, but I'm often pleasantly surprised by how well she is doing in another.  This time I was thrilled by most of what I saw!  This was called the discharge report, but since she has three more months until she turns 3 I'm a little confused by that.  They tried to explain it was due to the holiday, but even still it seems a little early, but oh well.

The specific report they did was the Hawaii Early Learning Profile (HELP).  "This is a non-standardized assessment that examines seven domains of development: regulatory/sensory organization (self-regulation capacities and a child's capacity to perceive and organize various sensory experiences), cognition (mental processess related to thinking, remembering and reasoning), language (expressive and receptive), gross motor (whole body movements such as crawling, walking, jumping, and climbing), fine/perceptual motor and finally self help (oral motor, dressing, feeding, grooming)".  Here are the results from the previous test and the current test:

Chronological Age	28 mths	33 mths
Regulatory/Sensory	Atypical - Concerns are with hypersensitivity to vestibular and proprioceptive processing	Atypical - Concerns are with hypersensitivity to vestibular and proprioceptive processing
Cognition	20-24 mths with scattered skills up to 29 mths	28-30 mths
Receptive Language	22-24 with scattered skills up to 30 mths	26-29 mths
Expressive Language	15-18 mths	21-24 mths
Gross Motor	18-20 mths	25-29mths with delays in jumping and stairs (22 mths)
Fine Motor Foundations	intact with exception of bilateral and midline skills (8.5-12 mths)	intact with exception of grasp and prehension (23-25 mths)
Perceptual-Motor Integration	18-23 mths with greater concerns in paper/scissor tasks	26-28 mths
Self Help	20-24 mths	30-34 mths

Just writing that out made me question a few things in it, but overall I am extremely proud of how hard Sweet Pea has worked these past few months.

One of the things that gets me frustrated is that she has finally started to sleep better and I wonder if that has anything to do with how strong she is developing in so many areas.  I know I do a lot better with sleep!  The only two things we changed were 1) putting Angel in the same room as her and so Sweet Pea had to learn to sleep through crying 2) giving her Nexium at night instead of in the morning.  I wish I knew if either of those were the magic bullet for her sleeping better, but as long as it continues I really don't care.

I need to try to get the data behind these numbers on Monday as it seems that some might not be completely accurate.  For example, in the 28 mth results she was intact on fine motor foundations except for the bilateral and midline skills which would typically be in the 8.5-12 mth range.  From what they explained to me last time that meant that she had met all the skills (except for the bilateral and midline) up to the 28 mth level.  This time it says she is intact with the exception of grasp and prehension (which I just looked up in the dictionary as "The act of grasping or seizing") which is listed as 23-25 mths.  Did she regress?  If she was intact up to 28 mth before (except midline/bilateral), how is she now missing this other area?

This is good practice at trying to understand the tests and trying to figure out what they really mean since I'm told I need to learn to do that when it comes time for IEPs.  I have a lot of learning ahead of me, but I do enjoy most of it.  It's fascinating learning about development!  I just wish that my child's education didn't depend upon it!

Now for some random pictures...

The girls are having fun playing together these days and I can't adequately express how much joy it brings me to watch them.






Christmas Parade with Grandma and Grandpa.  We are surprised Angel survived as she had 102 fever and was doped up on Tylenol, but she rallied and made it through.