Day 275 - James Had His 1st Zoom Test

Friday, October 1st, 2021

James is 9 months old!!! (5½ months adjusted!)

Wow time really goes by fast! We've now been home for 3 weeks. Before you know it, James will be having his first birthday party!🎈 Crazy, right? 😮🥺

Today James had his first skills assessment! We had a 2 hour Zoom screening with Early Steps to determine where he is at for social, communication, motor and self-help skills.

Early Steps is Florida's early intervention system that offers services to eligible infants and toddlers, age birth to 36 months, who have or are at-risk for developmental disabilities or delays. Early intervention supports families and caregivers to increase their child’s participation in daily activities and routines that are important to the family. Positive early learning experiences are crucial for later success in school, the workplace, and the community. Research shows that children’s earliest experiences play a critical role in brain development.

James automatically qualified due to his low birth weight. As a preemie, we calculate adjusted age by subtracting the number of months they were premature from the actual age.

9 months actual- 3.5 months early = 5½ months adjusted (or corrected)

Many professionals working with premature infants will use corrected age until actual age reaches 2 to 2 ½ years. It is felt that this is generally the time most premature babies have “caught up” and there is little or no difference noted from a baby born at term. However, due to James being a micro preemie, dependent on the ventilator he may not catch up until 5 years old, since he has been sedated and bed bound for so long. We will see!

He did really well during his assessment and they kept saying how cute he was! Some of the things they had him do were to see if he could grasp toys, reach for things, multitask, tracking his eyes, recognize himself in the mirror, how much control he has in his head and torso, smiling at familiar faces, etc. 

Below is where they scored him for a 9-month-old.

Cognitive 79

Communication 75

Social 71

Motor 70

Gross 57

Fine Motor 84

Adaptive < 50

Some of his lower scores are due to the fact that he cannot make sounds even if he wanted to. We know the other day we posted some videos of him cooing and making appropriate baby noises however the leak in his cuff was a little too much and just was not safe. We needed to make sure that James was getting his volumes, which not only includes the oxygen but the pressure from the ventilator to keep his lungs open.

P.S. If you read the blog and are supporting James through his journey we would love you to participate in our video montage of everyone singing his lullaby. Please see the James Weston lullaby post for more details. ❤️

P.P.S. Thank you so much for the lullaby submissions so far! It's so exciting to have all of you be a part of something so special! 😭