Thursday, October 9, 2008

Eval time again

Get It Down; 31 for 21
Yep, evaluations still suck!! Ella has been at her school for 6 months now so it was time for all her evaluations to be redone. I got the results of her physical therapy eval yesterday. I have to say I must have been in denial AGAIN because I really expected that since she is a walker for her scores to be a lot higher than they are. Overall they rated her at 24 months and 24 days to be the equivalent of a 14 month old. Seriously??? Almost a year behind, ugh. On the stationary portion of the test she scored at the equivalent of an 11 month old. The kicker is the percentiles that she fits into. For stationary she is in the 6th percentile, Object Manipulation she is in the 2nd percentile, and Locomotion (walking etc) she is in the 1st percentile, which means that 99 percent of her peers (all 24 month olds) do these things better than her.

This time didn't get me nearly as down as the first eval did. I realize that they have to do these in order for her to qualify for services. I also understand that, at least in my mind, it is not an accurate assessment of Ella's abilities. She is doing so wonderful. I guess I still just forget how far behind the "typical" 2 year old she is. I really am not looking forward to a speech eval, I know that will be way worse.

All I have to do is look at this sweet face though, and I am cheered up!













Grandmom brought her a
Halloween braclet.























And a new "quack, quack."










Can you guess the fate of this
braclet. Yep, broke the very same
day.










"I looked into my little bag and saw I had one jewel left, the brightest jewel of all. I had the gift of faith." - Lola Falana

10 comments:

Brandy said...

Kacey ~ My daughter has speech issues. Sometimes I get so sick of the teachers telling me just how "sweet" and "loving" she is... right before the bomb drops and I hear how she's just not at the same place her peers are. She's in the 2nd grade now and I dread parent/teacher nights. It breaks the heart more each time. (((Hugs)))

Anonymous said...

It must feel like one step forward, two steps back each time you get an eval done. Keep your head up and dont get too down. After all she is the "Amazing Ella Grace." Eval or not.

datri said...

Evals suck. Kayla's scored in the 1/10 of 1% for the past 2 years, probably because they can't score her any lower. And I know this and I mentally brace myself for it every year, but it still knocks the wind out of me to see it in black and white.

At least they never argue with me about the amount of services she needs.

I know everyone says it, and I tell myself it all the time, but the eval isn't who SHE is.

Anonymous said...

I love little missy's pigtails--just adorable as always! What those evals fail to meausure is determination and ambition! Ella certainly has MORE than the average for a 2 year old! It is encouraging that she is sooooo strong willed because that means she is going to be up for any challenges that come her way and meet them head on!! She is "amazing" after all! Love ya's--Aunt Tami

Mommy to those Special Ks said...

I hate evals too. I've gotten to the point where I just don't ask about PT especially, because really, who cares if she can stand on one foot for more than a minute?! I'm pretty sure I can't even do that!

As long as Ella Grace is continuing to do new things, she's doing fabulous! And she's oh so beautiful!!! :)

Maya said...

I am in love with those little pigtails. So so cute!

I agree, evals are hard. Sometimes I think Leo is doing so well (and he is!) but there are still plenty of "issues" and things he has to work on. It's like evals bring me crashing down to Earth, back to "reality" when I am so often content to live in my "everything is just fine" dream world. Sigh.

Anonymous said...

I hate evals too. My Olivia does great and so much better than anyone ever expected...and then the eval sucks and you feel bad!! Well, it's just a piece of paper in order to get services, right?? She is so stinkin' cute I can't stand it!!

kecia said...

whenever I check on what she is up to I am always amazed at all she is diong. I know it is always hard when they do the evalutaions though. She is a doll as usual and Bree enjoys breaking my jewelry too.

Ann of the Incredible Gift said...

Evals are loathsome, and painful, but necessary.

After the evals were done we ignored them and focused on the fact that Margret was progressing. At her own pace, true, but progressing.

When she was born, the doctor who delivered her told us she had DS, then said she would be like any other child, but reaching her milestones later.

It was the hospital pediatrician who came in the next day who was negative, listing a whole bunch of things he believed she would never do.

The pediatrician was wrong, wrong, wrong. As daughter grew up, she did all the things he said she would not.

Michelle said...

You're not in denial! I remember when Kayla had her big eval when she aged out of ECI and was transitioning to preschool. I joked with Joe that if it weren't for the Ds diagnosis she probably wouldn't qualify for PT as that was her strongest area (or so it seemed to me). I thought OT or ST were definitely the weaker areas. I was shocked at her results; PT was the lowest scored (and I think signing helped w/her ST score because it does count as communication.) There were so many, of what I thought were "little" things for PT that really made her score/age equivalence low. Stuff like she couldn't balance on one foot for 3 secs, couldn't kick a ball more than so many feet, couldn't throw a ball in the air for so many feet (it wasn't enough that she could throw overhand, it had to travel so far), couldn't walk toe-to-heel and on and on it seemed to go. I remember crying about it too; so frustrating! Just wanted to let you know you're not alone :)