Neurology Helps!

Who knew?? Ha!

Some of you have been so precious to ask what we found out with our girl. I posted this on my special needs blog, but thought I would add a little to it and post it here too.

Of course we know that doctors are in their fields because they have a heart to help others and they have studied their behinds off to understand more about our mysterious bodies. Well, that was exactly the case with us on Friday when Caroline got to see a neurologist for the first time!! I am so thankful for our OT who worked hard to get us in! God is so good, ya'll!! I am amazed at how He has provided for us through our school, OT, psychologist, and now this neurologist!! WOO HOO! God is good!

We are going to have an MRI and some blood work done so that they can learn a few new things about our girl.

1) They will look at her thyroid and other indicators about her muscle tone... which apparently is "low" or floppy.

2) They will look at her frontal lobe in her brain to determine if there is a disconnect somehow in between her brain and her ocular nerves (which help you with eye movement and control).

3) They will also look to see if there are any areas that might be affected that could cause permanent learning disabilities.

4) They also want to see if she might be a candidate for vision therapy that might strengthen her eyes and give her more ability to stay focused on a task for longer periods of time. Therapy in OT has helped her be able to stay in her seat longer and pay attention so other therapies might enhance that. We just need to know for sure before we spend all that dough!

There are some pretty interesting things that this kid is doing that is leading us to want to know more.

1) She can spell words aloud, but writes the correct letters in a different order on paper. Hmmm... interesting, huh? Even simple words she will say (for example) "I-T" for "it" but sometimes writes "T-I". WHY is that? We are not sure if she is flipping them in her head or if there is a processing problem that causes her to not be able to get words from her head to her hand and then onto the paper. It's called dysgraphia. Sort of like dyslexia, but it's with writing instead of reading.

2) She is beginning to read and do math, but math is slower... so they will look at whether or not she is right brained or left brained and see where her strengths are. The eye thing could have something to do with it being difficult to stay on task too. If she can't control her eyes then she can't stay focused. Can we fix it? I don't know!

3) She does some different behaviors that seem autistic in nature, but her verbal abilities are so strong that they don't think it's autism. They think it's "stereotypies" which is like a behavior disorder that we HOPE will correct itself as she get older (or as peers begin to ask "what's that you do with your hands?" she will want to stop!).

Anyway, I am thankful that we can have this insight into her little head and see what all is going on. I just really feel that the Lord is showing us that He is working all of this for His good and one day He is going to show her and us just what a special plan He has for her.

In the mean time we will just be thrilled with this: