Test Scores

A group left some powdered donuts at the center over the weekend. We thought we'd see what kind of mess he could make with one, but he was surprisingly neat!

We've had a lot of questions lately about how Reni's tests have been coming back. I'm sorry that I've not been so good at posting the results here! We were grateful to learn late last week that his renal scan came back completely normal, as did the bloodwork that had come in so far. The testing continues, however...


Today Reni was evaluated by Kentucky's early intervention program for any cognitive/social/adaptive/physical delays. Reni came back on the high side of the average range in all areas except for "social" in which he was above average for his age level! At the risk of bragging, we're proud of our little guy and so grateful for yet another evidence of the wonderful care he was blessed to receive by the Sisters of Charity and caregivers at the orphanage in Elbasan. Those results are pretty remarkable considering the fact that he has only been home one month and that most 14-month-old children from an orphange/institutional background would be testing 3-4 months behind their peers. We were told that if he had a better grasp of English (for example, been able to identify body parts, something we haven't started working on yet as we're working on transitioning from Shqip to the English words that everyone else in his new world uses, like "eat", "sleep", "drink", etc, that he would probably have scored even higher).

He does qualify for physical therapy to help in the transition to prosthetics, but if all goes well, that therapy may also be short-lived. [The kind lady, Ms. Teresa, who came to test him kept asking if she could take him home with her. That may have partially accounted for the good scores ;-) ]

One cute side story from this morning... part of the evaluation included a good deal of interviewing Nathan and I. The test giver asked us, "When you say a word, like "dog" for example, will Reni turn his head and look at your dog, Reagan?" We shrugged and I asked Reni, "Where is Ellie? Ku eshte Ellie?"

Reni looks at me for a second, then takes off on a rapid crawl down the hall towards the bedrooms, then starts looking in each room for his sister. It wasn't a fair question since Ellie was at school, but he definitely knew what I was asking! It was really sweet!

Ms. Teresa told us she was really impressed with his inflection when he babbled and his pointing and attempts to say something for each object to which he pointed. He even mimicked a tune I sang in front of him. All of those activities indicated good emerging verbal abilities.