My son will be 3 1/2 next month (Feb. 2010), and lately, I feel as though he may need some form of early intervention. He was a very late walker (19 months), and it seems as though much of his other physical development has been late, also. Only a few months ago, he was able to jump with both feet off the ground together. Intellectually, he seems to be on track. He knows his shapes, colors, numbers, and some of his letters. He seems to be fine socially in some ways, but not in others--unless he's just demonstrating normal 3-year-old behavior. He enjoys playing with other children, but when he's playing with a toy like Legos or something else, and it was played with a certain way before (like if the Legos were built into a rocket shape), he'll get frustrated and upset if it's not built and played with the exact same way every time. His fine motor skills are the worse. He'll water color, but he won't color with crayons and acts frustrated when his coloring doesn't look like mine or someone else's. It's as though he has no confidence at all in his own ability to draw/color. If I draw something for him, he'll want me to draw the same thing over and over and over again--usually a rocket ship, which seems to be his current obsession. He also talked later than most children, and although we can understand most of what he says, he still has some difficulty with sounding out certain letters and imitating sounds. At his 3 year appointment, we filled out a developmental checklist, and it said he was behind his age (at around 2 years 10 months or so)--and he was well into being 3 years old at that point. I'm wondering if I should contact his doctor and have a more in-depth evaluation done. If you've seen these sorts of behaviors/developmental delays in your child, what did you do? My husband is an OB/GYN, and he doesn't think there is anything wrong with our son, but he's not with him all day like me. Also, we decided to wait another year before we put him in preschool due to his birthday being so close to the school cut off date, but he is around other children each week because we're part of a large moms' group where we live. Oh, and despite our many attempts to potty train (we're working on it now), he doesn't seem to even notice his body's signals, going through underwear like crazy.
Hi Amanda! fun to see you on mamasource... :)
Jeremiah (my kindergartener) was slow with his speech development so we requested an evaluation from first steps. and gave me more confidence about where he really was with his speech development. i thought that since he wasn't saying much that he was delayed, but they tested things like his understanding of what people say to him and his vocabulary knowledge, which happened to be above average, it was just that he didn't feel like talking yet. he didn't need speech therapy after all, but it made me feel lots better to have him evaluated. the evaluation is free and so is the therapy, so why not do it?
my son didn't color till he started kindergarten. now he draws for more than an hour a day, and can write all his letters............ he just wasn't interested. i think it's a boy thing. playing and jumping around was more fun than small motor skills like coloring.
with my girls (2nd and 3rd kids) i've been much more relaxed about developmental milestones. for one, i'm too busy to read the books and checklists....... but i've learned that it really doesn't matter if they are right on with the average development of other kids their ages... they have a LOT to learn and they will learn at their own pace following their interests. don't worry too much, and encourage what he is into.