In a Nutshell

We had Ben's final PT consultation on Monday and good news abounded! First, he passed his hearing test, which we never suspected would be a problem, but it was still nice to know he passed. Second, we met with his case worker and his developmental specialist who felt that "there were no red flags" (i.e. things look normal in terms of a diagnosis and most likely it's just a delay). They also said that they believe he doesn't even need to be seen by a physical therapist. Rather, they feel like he will benefit from working with a developmental specialist who will come out once a week and play with Ben and help me learn how to encourage correct movement and build muscle tone. If all that doesn't make sense, you can look at it from this perspective, it's like talking to a school counselor verses a psychologist. That's the degree of separation from a developmental specialist to a physical therapist. We found this news to be extremely encouraging and while we are still going to have him evaluated in August by ECEP, we feel that their evaluation will reveal similar info. Praise God for such wonderful news!

So for now, we will meet once a week with the DS and see how Ben tolerates our little meetings. The key is that he has to enjoy it and it should never feel like "work" to him or he might shut down. In addition, we were given some homework, if you will, at this last meeting to try with Ben. It's been interesting, as one of the methods suggested includes walking him around with a towel under his arms for support. Let me just say that neither of us knows quite what we think of this. I won't even go into what the neighbors must think :) All in the name of walking! But Ben is still quite mobile on his own. He's cruising and crawling about 50/50 in "four point" crawling verses his trademark army crawl. He's also crawling up onto the furniture and spending quite a bit of time vertical. I imagine it won't be too much longer before he starts with the independent standing and steps.

And because I can't leave you with some photos for the GP's, here's some pictures of the boys doing what they do best! Getting into mischief!