Peter Gwydion

Developmental ideas from long, long ago…

We had our EI “evaluation” a couple of weeks ago.  It was just fine, and we really liked the people who came out - C, our services coordinator, and M, the nurse who runs the developmental tests.  At the evaluation, M found that Gwyn is actually just fine chronologically in gross motor skills - he’s learning to walk, crawling and climbing well, and quite strong!  His fine motor and language skills - which go hand in hand - were developmentally behind his gross motor skills.  Since babies often have growth spurts in one area, then have a growth spurt in another, this wasn’t surprising, and not worrisome at all.

Now that he’s crawling all over the place, though, I thought it would be great to have a teacher come in and show me some new games to play with him, so that we could enjoy each other more in this new developmental stage.  So, that was our plan - a teacher, specializing in fine motor skills, would come out twice a month to teach us new games and fun ways to help Gwyn’s development.

The teacher, E, came out for the first time a few days ago.  With her came K, a physical therapist.  While playing with him, K determined that Gwyn didn’t need fine motor skills therapy, but needed occupational therapy - that his tendons and muscles were supposedly somewhat tight, which would affect his ability to walk and balance normally.  What she saw was “very subtle,” but she said that it merited having an occupational therapist, and that his balance would be adversely effected until we “fixed it.”

As it turned out, K wasn’t even supposed to BE here that day.  She “tagged along,” then gave an opinion - based, again, on a very brief assessment - which totally changed the course of what we thought were doing.  And, as a result, I feel (once again!) like I have no clue what’s going on, like I shouldn’t listen to my intuition that Gwyn is fine.  It’s yet another “expert” telling me blithely that something different is wrong, which I need to fix or I’m failing my child.

I’m most upset because EI was supposed to be an addition to our everyday life, and not supposed to impact our relationship.  The way I understood EI was that Kevin and I would remain the experts on Gwyn.  We would incorporate new kinds of play, or new kinds of stretches, into our day, but that would be the extent of it.  Instead, I find myself going, “Is that normal?  Is that normal?” about every behavior Gwyn exhibits.  I’m analyzing his behavior instead of celebrating it.  It’s an unwelcome element, and I’m not willing to let that attitude color my relationship with my son through his babyhood.

We have another meeting with C, our services coordinator, tomorrow.  Hopefully she can tell us why K came in the first place, if she wasn’t authorized to.  We also want to know what this means for the two hour evaluation that we went through when beginning with the program.  Can its findings really be overturned by a physical therapist with half an hour to kill and no compunction about being “invited” somewhere?  If so, what’s the point?  How can we trust that the course we’re taking is the right one, if every “expert” they’re affiliated with has a different opinion on what the right course is?

Needless to say, it’s incredibly frustrating.  I don’t like feeling unsure about the treatment that we may or may not give Gwyn, especially when I happen to think his balance is just fine:

His love for the kitties is also doing quite well.