Developmental Results

It went better than I could have ever imagined. Kaitlyn is not autistic. Kaitlyn is not PDD-NOS (just to the left of the autism spectrum - pediatric developmental disorder not otherwise specified). She scored only about 1 month behind on her speech (which encompassed both her receptive speech - what she understands us say - and her expressive speech - what she actually says).

Now, you all might be thinking, why did they even have her tested if she scored so well and only showed a one month delay? You'd think to yourselves that I'm crazy and maybe I imagined all of this or have too high of expectations. I suppose I'd tell you all that you're entitled to your opinion, but you also don't have twins. And I'd go with the old saying about a mother's instinct, and my instincts told me to have this checked out. I wonder if my concern grew from the fact that I watch Nicole every day, day in and day out, and notice that Kailtyn's vocabulary is not really close to Nicole's. So, how was I to know whether Nicole was advanced or if Kaitlyn was behind? And Kailtyn has this stimming. And I know two people with autistic children and having heard their stories, I think I felt like it's never wrong to puruse your gut feeling when it comes to your kids. I guess to sum it up, this would have haunted me if I hadn't done anything about it.

The doctor still recommended that we continue with speech therapy, so it's not like she thought Kaitlyn was "fine." And she told me she'd never tell me that Kaitlyn was fine at our first visit because, after all, I wouldn't have brought her in for an evaluation if everything was perfectly on track. So, we'll continue with that for a while. Maybe Kailtyn will have her break through...maybe not. She also wants to see Kaitlyn back in 6-9 months to make sure she's making progress (unless she progresses so much that it's unnecessary).

Thanks for your warm wishes. We appreciate it. And we were pleased that we did this and pleased with the doctor's thoughts/opinions.