Single Digit's Single Digit.

As part of the assessment with the paediatric neurodevelopmental clinic, Torran has had an occupational therapy assessment. He used to have daily OT for most of his first year at home. Having reached appropriate milestones and skills for his age, he was discharged.

I thought that he was doing ok.

In hindsight now, maybe we should have stayed on top of it a little better?

After a few months of waiting for an assessement (aside: yes... waiting... that thing which no one who comes to my department wants to do... and you wonder why I get cynical?) Torran's evaluation was less than stellar.

Surprisingly not so stellar.

Occupational therapy means the skills and body physics required to do the every day tasks of life and/or your job. "Job" in his case means, daily life activies, play and pre-writing skills.

He scored in the 9th percentile for both fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

That means, for every 100 children, 9 or fewer faired worse than him. 10 to 100 can do better than him. (versus an average which takes the scores of all the children, adds them up and divides by the number of children, which does not really represent where he is at in that group as lots of highs or lows skews the results)

So, let's add another therapy back on the docket.

Moreover, jaw drop, I didn't realize it was that bad.

He's going to go to nursery school in September (we've found a place that hopefully will meet his needs), so hopefully we'll be able to improve that percentile sooner rather than later. Of course, part of me is concerned that part of the gap comes from cogitive and/or sensor processing which will be harder to get around, if at all.

I'm trying not to feel like I've failed him, but I don't think that developmental delay news has hit me quite this way before (autism diagnosis notwithstanding). I'm actually kinda numb.

So it's do away with the big blocks, or any blocks that fit together for that matter (sorry Lego). No more time off from parent directed play. Lots of practice and coaching. And, results oriented parenting, which can be very lengthy and exauhsting.

One can only hope for the best.