As many of you know, Niklas came home from China with other needs besides his CL/CP. We knew as parents to expect some developmental delays but I have thought from the beginning that his delays were different. It has been a stressful ten months because I have had a conflict with myself over my feelings. Mothers are only supposed to think the best about their children and I have felt quite the opposite due to my experience teaching preschool and watching Ellie Grace grow.
We found a developmental pediatrician and we have seen her once a week for the past three weeks. She talked with us, observed Niklas interact with us and Ellie Grace, spent one visit testing Niklas, and then went over the results with us this week. His strength is fine motor and his adaptive skills have improved. However, his language skills are very weak. He is very delayed in expressive speech and somewhat delayed in receptive language so she said he has Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Disorder. He also still has issues with his gross motor skills and hypotonia. We don't really know the reason for these but she is having us do some bloodwork that may or may not give us more answers. She did stress that he is learning and that is a good thing. So we will keep moving forward and providing the best we can for him.