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Friday, January 11, 2008

Julia

It has been quite awhile since I have done a "catch all" Julia update. Time is short, so, I am going to do this one in list form.

Gross motor: Her legs have gotten considerably stronger and this shows when she does things like walking up and down stairs, or just walking, running or jumping in general. Stairs are still an effort for her (going up the effort is in pushing off and carrying her body weight and going down it's more of a balance and coordination type of effort). Still though, she has gotten "good enough" on the stairs that I am fully comfortable with her going up and down mine (well as fully comfortable as one could be going up and down mine...my stairs are not a good barometer on which to measure anyone's gross motor skills). She hasn't mastered alternating feet going up and down yet, but it is something we work on all the time at home and at school. She is definitely stronger with her left leg than her right.

Sensory: Most of her "issues" in this area are in regard to "spacial awareness" and fine motor skills. She still seems to have a little trouble with balance and coordination which is all part of the spacial awareness thing but it seems to be improving. They work on all kinds of balance type things at school, which I think will help. her fine motor skills are coming along nicely, and she can even print her name now by her self! It's as legible as one would expect a 3 year old's writing to be, but it's definitely her name she is writing.

Academic: While this area has never really been a concern, her academic skills are noteworthy just the same. For a long time now, she has recognized all of her shapes and colors. She also recognizes all of her letters, both upper and lower case. She recognizes a few words as well, including her name, her sisters names and Mom and Dad. As mentioned above, she can print her first name as well. She's funny...every time she sees a "J" anywhere she says, "That's J for Julia!" She can rote count to 17 before she starts confusing the numbers and can actually count small objects until about 5 or 6.

Speech and Language: I know that some people that know Julia might wonder why she would ever need speech services. The girl can talk, let me tell you. Julia's area of concern is in the are of comprehension and attention. To give an example when asked to point to an object in a book, she doesn't always understand the direction given, and sometimes can't seem to focus on the task at hand. She seems to be coming along in this area as well.

Overall, to sum it up, she is doing quite well. School has been a wonderful addition to her life, and has really helped her socially as well. She stills has those, "I am completely overwhelmed by this thing called life" moments but, they are becoming far and few between.

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