Two weeks ago we had an OT assessment with Mel at the Hospital. It was purely to see where she's at.. Here's the report...

"Isla has been attending Occupational Therapy since November 2006. Her presenting problem related to mirroring of her hand movements. She has attended regular appointments on a monthly basis in which she has been provided activities to decrease the presence of mirroring her hand movements.

A review assessment was conducted today to determine her level of function for her fine motor skills.

Results of Assessment
The assessment conducted was related to her motor skill development. Isla was assessed using the following assessment tools:

* Parent Questionnaire
* Peabody Developmental Motor Scale (2nd Ed)
* Non-standard observations.

Assessment Results
Peabody Developmental Motor Scale (2nd Edition)
The Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-II is comprised of six sub-tests that measure interrelated motor abilities that develop early in life. The assessment measures both gross and fine motor skills, however for the purpose of this assessment, only the fine motor component was utilised. Isla achieved the following results:

Component Standard Score Age equiv.
Grasping 9 34 months
Visual Motor Integration 9 34 months

* Grasping
Isla swapped hands throughout the assessment, Her mother reported that she predominately uses her left hand for feeding and ball skills, however swaps for fine motor activities. She held her pencil with a quadripod grasp (Placed her middle finger on the pencil as opposed to resting it underneath)

* Visual Motor Integration
Isla was able to build a tower of 10 blocks. She also attempted to imitate building structures such as a bridge and a wall, however demonstrated difficulty with copying the structures exacrtly. She was able to copy a vertical and horizontal stroke and a circle, however was unable to copy a cross. She has not yet learnt to grasp scissors with one hand and was unable to snip the edge of the paper. She was able to thread beads onto a string and laced a piece of string onto a lacing card.

Recommendations
1. It is recommended that Isla continue to attend Occupational Therapy to monitor her scissor skills development and hand preference".

So there you have it, Isla is only "delayed" by 2 months with fine motor now which is unreal! We're trying to work out which hand she'll write with. She's always been prone to using her left hand for feeding, throwing etc, and kicks with her left foot too, but has more control and uses an almost proper finger grip when drawing with her right. We need to build her stamina with the one hand, so in effect, stop her from switching hands half way through drawing. We stick a sticker on the hand she uses first and tell her this is her drawing hand, and constantly make sure we keep on her about this.

By the way, the monkey is 12kgs now :)