Months ago before Camden was even crawling (which if you recall he was late reaching that milestone) one of his teachers mentioned to me that I might want to look into ECI to come out and evaluate him due to his slow progression in mobility. For those of you who are not aware of what ECI is or does, they are a Texas based program that deal with children who are 3 months or more behind in their development - be it social, physical, mental, or any other area. I had talked with my pediatrician at Camden's 12 month appointment regarding his non-interest in walking, and she reassured me that things were fine, he has been slow in all of his other milestones, and not to be worried regarding his walking at this time. So, I chose not to refer him to ECI at that time, deciding instead to wait a bit. Now, let me back up a bit and say that Shane and I have noticed for a long time, even prior to him crawling, that his left foot pronates inward. It is hard to describe this, so here is a picture showing what I mean.
We were hoping that with his increased standing as well as moving while holding on to furniture would help straighten that out, but that has not occurred. So about 3 weeks ago, the director of Camden's school stopped me on my way out and voiced the teachers, as well as her concern, regarding Camden. She was not so concerned that he was not yet walking, however that he has decreased muscle strength in his left leg, which she felt could be due to the way he crawls.
She again recommended that I contact ECI and let them come to the home and evaluate his progression and offer me some information and guidance regarding what things we could do with him at home, as well as school, to help strengthen that left leg. So I went home that evening and filled out a referral on-line. After several phone interviews over the past few weeks, they finally set the appointment to send an occupational therapist as well as an intake coordinator to the house yesterday. Let me also say, that when Shane took Camden to his well check appointment yesterday, the doctor was pleased that we had contacted ECI to evaluate Camden.
The ladies were both very nice and spent 2 hours at the house observing Camden as well as asking a TON of questions. After all was said and done, they found him to be developmentally accelerated in the cognitive, communication, and social-emotional areas. He was noted to be right on development for the adaptive area. However, for the physical aspect, he was noted to be at a 3 month delay, which qualified him for services. So, the OT will be coming out twice a month for 60 minutes each time until we reach our goal of walking. As far as his pronated foot, she will have an orthotist come out to evaluate the need for an orthotic on the foot. She gave us exercises to do with Camden until she comes out again to help strengthen his left leg, as well as to make him more aware of certain muscles that he can use to help his mobility.
I guess it is a good thing we achieved our goal of becoming over tenth percentile in weight, so we could focus on our new goal of getting Camden to be right on target for developing physically. Like they always say, if it is not one thing, then it is another!!
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