Adi's Big Day- the First of Many

So today my little girl had her evaluation for therapy. She was seen by an occupational therapist, physical therapist, speech therapist and special education teacher. She qualified for everything. I don't know whether to say Baruch Hashem for that or not... It's unfortunate that she needs it, but B"H it's available and she qualified! Within five minutes of each evaluation it was clear that she would qualify, although they did finish the session to see what else they can observe.

With every next question they asked, I became more and more aware of how much behind Adel really is. Questions about what she does when she wakes up (she stays in the crib happily for too long), questions about how she reacts to tone of voice (she almost doesn't), questions about how she reacts to a dropped toy (she almost doesn't.)

The occupational therapist gave Adi a peg and board with holes. She put in a peg herself and tried to get Adi to do it, too. Adi ignored her and played with the peg. The therapist put a red button inside a hole in the board and tried to see what Adel would do with it. She ignored it.
The therapist tried to get Adel to shake a rattle by demonstrating on another rattle. Adel just stared. Once I took Adel's hand and shook it, she understood.

Then the therapist took a little wind-up monkey with cymbals and let it walk in front of Adi. Adi just stared with mild interest.

Physical therapy went something like this: Adel did nothing. LOL.
They determined that her muscle tone is very weak (upper body) specifically and that she uses her left side quite dominantly and tries to avoid her right. Right leg looks shorter because she doesn't extend it. When on belly, she pushes her left side up higher. When held upright, she puts more weight on her left leg and stands on tiptoe with her right.
I never noticed any of this!

I did notice, though, that she doesn't make a fuss when I dress her until it comes to the sleeves. And the therapist noticed that as well. Adel doesn't lift her arms high up. They are usually close to her body, or extended partially forward. She winces and whimpers when someone tries to lift her arms high. Also, when she shakes a rattle, she kinda flips her wrists and doesn't shake it from the elbow or shoulder.
The therapist undressed her and checked out her shoulder blades, but couldn't find anything wrong. She said that I should address it with the pediatrician. *sigh*

The special education teacher didn't do anything- she just observed and took notes.

The speech therapist gave me problems, though. She went on and on about starting solids and how I should have started at four months and that babies in their fourth month are more advanced than her. *eye roll* She said that she has to practice with foods and all in order to progress with speech. She kept asking me if I'd give Adel a bottle, would she know what to do with it? I said no, because she never had one. Why not? I am putting her at a developmental disadvantage by not giving bottles. Nice. The fact that nursing develops the mouth much better than any bottle or food can went ignored.
Then she tried another tactic. She said that once Adel is crawling or walking or whatever, she won't have the time to slow down to nurse. *?!?!?* Oookay... so why would she slow down to eat puree, then?
I told her that I know plenty of people who exclusively nurse their crawling babies and that crawling isn't incompatible with exclusive nursing.

I wasn't too annoyed, though, because my service coordinator warned me that the speech therapist is very opinionated on solids. Whatever. I will just have to request another speech therapist.

So our next step is to go for a hearing test. I don't think Adel had one at birth. That will be within the next week. And some time around Rosh Hashana there will be a meeting between all kinds of government people (I didn't care to remember their titles) to decide how often she gets each therapy, what time of day and all that.