This says Amanda is at a two-year-old level in language, but my older daughter said all the words Amanda says when she was only 18 months old. Is the test wrong?
More likely, your older child was just advanced for her age. Remember, the age equivalent says this is what 50% of children do by two years of age. There may be 10% of children who know the same number of words at one year, but they would not be considered average for their age.
My child is four years old and this says his fine motor skills are at the three-year-old level. What are fine motor skills and does this mean he is mentally retarded?
Answering the second question first. No! One single test cannot be used to classify a child as disabled or not. Fine motor skills are small muscle movements, usually in coordination with the eyes (although not always, blind children can have very good fine motor skills). If a child is delayed in fine motor skills, it can mean many things. It may be that your child was born premature or is delayed for some other reason and, with help from you and an early childhood program, may catch up and have no disability at all later in life. It is possible that your child has a physical disability, such as cerebral palsy. In any case, if your child is far behind other children his or her age, you should be talking with professionals about what can be done to assist your child. Fine motor skills are important because they are the basis for everything from writing and typing to sewing and feeding yourself. Occupational therapy is often included on an IFSP to help children with fine motor skills. If your child is delayed in fine motor skills, ask about occupational therapy. Also ask what you can do at home to work with your child.
So it says my daughter is at the two-month-old stage in gross motor skills. What good does it do me to know that?
Dr. De Mars tells the following story:
"When I was in graduate school, I was doing home visits as part of a research project. At one home, the daughter, about eight years old and profoundly handicapped was laying on her stomach on a triangle-shaped foam pillow in front of the TV. I am embarrassed to admit that my first thought was that here was a bad mother who ignored her child. As I talked to the mother, she told me:
They say my daughter has a gross motor age of one month. At one month, babies are learning to lift their head up while laying on their stomach. She likes to look at the TV so I got this triangle for her and I lay her on it. Then she has to lift up her head to look at the TV.
In fact, this mother was a very good example of someone who used the test results to decide what her child needed and provided it for her."
NEXT: More on information on the IFSP