Physical Therapy Evaluation

Since Ellie's birth, well almost since birth, Andrew and I have been and still are Ellie's biggest advocates.

ECI was being a stubborn and said "she doesn't need therapy".  After much persuasion, our therapist agreed to once a month developmental therapy.  Ellie continued to stay on track in the very beginning, much to the surprise of her doctors.  We credit this to Ellie great abundance of determination, our (Andrew's & mine) work with her, and The Bear's therapist Jan.

We were told by the Dr. DelA at the Down Syndrome Clinic, which is now closed, that as the tasks become more complicated, Ellie will require more therapy and will probably lag behind her friends.  We were prepared for this and still, our little Bearity-Bear amazed(s) us.  As her friends started sitting, crawling and finger feeding, our developmental therapist decided Ellie should have 2 x month therapy.  Ellie has been making great strides with this increase in therapy and two weeks ago we needed to formulate new goals as she already met her ones for October!

Meanwhile, Ellie has been on a waiting list for outside physical therapy at the recommendations of well, myself and our pediatrician.  At Ellie's 9-month visit I requested a referral to PT and her pedi agreed.  While Bear-Bear was doing fabulous, we just wanted to make sure that Ellie was receiving all the possible help she could get.

That brings me to today.  Ellie was evaluated in all of her diapered-glory by two physical therapists.  They were amazed with how well she could move in different positions and planes and they felt comfortable with just once monthly sessions.  This would be on-top of our every 2 week ECI developmental therapy sessions.

She scored at an 8 month-level across the board for gross motor skills with the exception of sitting where she is at a 9-10 month level!

As has been the case for a while now, she needs to work on her abs, shoulders, glutes and hips. . . just like me.

Ellie has such sophisticated reading tastes.  No more board books for this girl.