Last HRIF

Last Thursday, Wyatt had his last High Risk Infant Follow-up clinic at Kaiser. He weighed 28lb 12oz roughly and was about 36". He did very well during his testing. The test gives you a score of competent, emerging or something else indicating a bigger problem. Wyatt scored competent in communication, cognitive and one other thing I can't recall now. He was emerging in gross motor and fine motor. We are getting a referral to PT. Both the OT who performed the test and the physician we saw thought if nothing else Sharon could give us some exercises to do with him. Dr. Cassidy said Wyatt has developmental delay in gross motor, but not CP. So I will stop worrying about that. He said his prognosis is very good. He mentioned Wyatt has brisk reflexes, but low tone in some areas. That seems so counter-intuitive to me. Aren't both neurological functions? Why is one response overly fast and the other overly slow?

The OT didn't think that the fine motor delay was significant. She thought it was more related to that being the last thing he was tested on and him being tired of sitting. I mentioned that we had seen a delay when he was tested on 18 months through Regional Center so we are getting an OT referral as well. The OT will also do a feeding evaluation to see if Wyatt has some textural issues with food. With the cleft palate it would be kind of surprising if he did not. I had been concerned about that at 18 months, but the physician we saw that time made me feel like I was overreacting and Wyatt was just being a toddler, although the exact same OT recommended it last time.

Wyatt did some funny and amazing things during his testing. He identified a baby bottle as "coffee" and then as "milk." He craddled a baby doll in his arms and called it "baby Seth." He started mimicing the evaluator by throwing his arms in the air and saying, "Where did it go?" over and over again. He had her in stitches. He matched images, identified shapes and said words I had no idea he even knew. I was particularly surprised with matching images. He still has little interest in stacking blocks. It seems like such a fundamental toddler/pre-schooler activity.

He also ran around saying "I kick it!" although he wasn't actually trying to kick the ball. He just kept picking it up and throwing it.

He actually stayed at the table and concentrated on things for a long time. Occasionally, he got up to go up and down a set of steps in the room. We called it "a step break."