Joel's Developmental Evaluation

On Thursday Joel had the developmental evaluation that we've been waiting about nine months for. He did really well, even showing skills I didn't know he had. He impressed his mommy! It took about 3.5 hours and was totally exhausting. Both of us were exhausted.

The results: Joel was diagnosed with Developmental Delay. (We already knew that.) He was also diagnosed with a mild case of Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified (PDDNOS). This is on the Autism spectrum but he barely qualified and I'm not concerned. He is still the exact same baby as before we got the diagnoses. Something to take into consideration is that a lot of behaviors that could look like Autism could be caused by his visual impairment. They have a lot of side effects that are the same. So I am not sure that he actually has PDDNOS, but it's okay that he was diagnosed with it because it may help him qualify for more services. It also could effect the way I teach him, so I'll have to do some research.

Here are his levels of development based on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development -III:
Cognitive - 18 months
Receptive Communication - 15 months
Expressive Communication - 14 months
Fine Motor - 15 months
Gross Motor - 18 months
Joel is 32 months old and if you take away the 15 months that he had non-stop seizures and wasn't learning it would leave 17 months that his brain has been able to process information. So I think he is doing wonderful and is an amazing little boy! Side note: It actually worked out really well that it took us so long to get the evaluation because he needed to test at the 18 month level in cognitive thinking for the Autism evaluation to be accurate. And he did! A month ago he wouldn't have. It was suggested that we continue all that we are currently doing as well as start speech therapy.

I love this picture taken on Mother's Day. It has nothing to do with this post, but I like to post pictures because I think it makes the blog more interesting.