Encouraging Words

Kaitlyn just finished her second appointment with the developmental pediatrician. The first was more of a Q&A for me followed by an actual physical exam of Kaitlyn last week. I guess she needs to rule out that there's anything physically wrong with Kaitlyn that could be causing her speech delay. So, for the first visit, she examed Kaitlyn, but her behavior wasn't the focus.

Today's appointment was all about behavior. She had 2 questionnaires that she was kind of going along with and filling them out as Kaitlyn did or did not do things (not much of the latter though which was great). She had Kaitlyn try to stack as many 1x1 inch blocks as she could. She got out a spoon and a small cup along with a doll to see if Kaitlyn would "feed" the baby. She had a shape sorter to see if Kaitlyn could put the shapes in the holes. She wasn't expecting at this age that Kaitlyn would know which hole but if we told her which hole, she wanted to see if Kaitlyn could push them through. She had a three piece puzzle (a square, triangle and circle) to see if Kaitlyn could do the puzzle. She had Kaitlyn color. You get the idea....lots of different things to see what she would do and how she would respond.

I was so proud of Kaitlyn. She did everything the doctor wanted so well. Obviously she got tripped up here and there and needed more than one try, but there wasn't one single task that she just out right refused to do. She didn't get fussy sitting in the chair for an hour either. And she impressed me....we don't have 1x1 blocks. We knew that she could stack larger blocks, but since we don't own smaller ones, we never had tried. She got 4 blocks stacked. It took her a time or two to get all the way up to 4 because her tower would get shaky since she wasn't putting them right on top of each other. But she kept trying. She didn't show frustration. That was something the doctor said she was watching too...did Kaitlyn give up on things or did she keep trying. She's my Little Engine That Could. Every task (shape sorter, puzzle, etc), she kept trying.

Oh, and I've got to toot my Little Engine's horn here for one minute. I think the second task was one where she flipped pages in a picture book and pointed at something and said, "What's this?" Kaitlyn didn't miss a single one!!!! She got them all!!!! This doctor had no idea which words we've worked on and which ones we haven't, but as luck would have it, she picked words that Kaitlyn knew, and Kaitlyn performed to the task. There was one page with foods on it. I was happy the doctor picked banana. She doesn't know broccoli (which was on there), and apple was on there. Nicole knows apple, but I'm not sure Kaitlyn does. But anyway...Kaitlyn said every word that was asked of her!!!!

Great going Kaitlyn!

So, anyway, because of all the mess with my insurance company, I had to trade spots with another mom who wanted to get in sooner. The doctor's office was super accommodating and found this other mom who wanted to be seen sooner and she took my series of three appts and I took hers. Well, my original appts were back to back to back. One each week. This lady's appts that I took didn't have her findings appt until all the way on APRIL 10th!!! Kill me now! That's 17 days I have to wait for results. I kind of mentioned to the doctor that my next appt was 2 1/2 weeks away. She was shocked. So, I said, "Are you really going to make me wait all that time to find out if there's something there?" She said....are you ready for it.....

"I will say, she really doesn't strike me as an autistic kid. I got a lot of positive interaction from her today. We still need to see how she scores though."

Those are my encouraging words for the next 2 1/2 weeks!!!! So, her first clinical impressions are that there might be something going on with Kaitlyn (as we wouldn't have been there in the first place if everything were perfect and hunky dory) but it's probably not autism. Like I said, she was filling out questionnaires that will try to place a more definitive answer on everything, so we'll wait for that, but I can't imagine the questionnaires going against her impressions since she's done this for so long.

What wonderful encouraging words. Either way the diagnosis goes, it's still good to know. Not wondering about this will be a huge relief either way as well, but obviously I'm pleased that it might be something other than autism.