3 1/2 year old

[Guest guest]

We are not new to our daughter having delays..she was a poor sucker

at birth and needed fed with a syringe,posture was " slumpy " and

rolled over,stood,walked and is now a " late talker "

She is physically a very beautiful and social child. We get comments

daily from strangers telling us how beautiful she is.

She seems very intelligent and " talks " with some words, gestures and

gets her points across. She loves to try to repeat and mimic what we

say but usually only one word.

We have had a mixed review if she truly has hypotonia. She has been

in speech, OT and PT for over two years through early intervention

and begun special ed preschool 4 days a week for two hours a day.

We have since found out she has a chromosone abnormality that may or

may not have anything to do with her delays. There have only been 17

reported cases ever of chromosone beign reported so who really knows

if it is important or not in the grand scheme of things.

But yet the genetist(who spent 15 minutes with our daughter and

compared her to the one research article he found on this particular

abnormality and the boy in the article had very obvious physical

characteristcs)told us she would need care the rest of her life and

would be retarded. We were floored.

We finally got into a dev. ped who asked us to read 'The Late

Talker " . We were astounded to read things that sound more like our

daughter than anything else we have been told so far. Frustrating to

know it took this long to find some hope.

We have another OT and ST eval set up by this wonderful

developemntal pediatrician. I am suspecting that our daughter will

be diagnosed with apraxia. I beleive she has some sensory issues as

well. She loves music and dancing and always has a toy or a small

object in her hand.

She has been assessed as having skills at a 2 yr level but yet she

is 3 1/2.....but she just seems " so smart " even though skills and

speech are behind.

Has anyone out there experienced anything similar? I live daily with

a large knot in my stomach on what her future holds for her.

Thank You for taking time to respond.