Hi,

My Godson is 3.5 and I'm wondering if he has cp. I've been wondering this for over a year now and I am curious what everyone here thinks...

symptoms:

Had corrective surgery for "lazy eye" forgot the correct term for it...
Still crawls up stairs
Stumbles/uncoordinated
Didn't start walking until he was 18 months
When he crawled he dragged one side of his body
Has difficulty with fine motors skills (beading, etc.)
Very small for age I think < 5th percentile
Drools
Speech is slurred
Difficulty potty training
Unrelated to the lazy eye he needs glasses

He is very smart and a sweet boy, I love him and his parents like family...our families are very close. He had lots of testing done a year or so ago, brain scans, metabolic testing, etc and nothing was ever caught. I casually asked her one day if he had been tested for cp and she said that one of the brains scans showed that he had a smaller than normal...cerebellum...(I think? The motor portion of the brain) but that it didn't show signs of cp. I think she is at the point now that she just believes he will outgrow these delays and it's just the way he is. She has switched doctors and hasn't mentioned his issues to his new pediatrician, I think she just hopes it will go away. I don't really blame her, she's had to endure putting him through so much testing already without any answers.

I'm just curious what other people think about this or some other possible causes for these delays...?

Hi, I don't know if I can answer specifically about cp. I am not an expert on cp but what I know about cp is that kids usually have spastic muscles and show signs of posturing (clentched fists, arching back, pointing toes) or some can have mixed low tone and high muscle tone. My son does posturing with his arms and hands but has low tone throughout his body. However, what you mentioned that stood out to me is that the child's cerebellum is underdeveloped. This is what my son has (in addition to some other issues in his brain). However, we believe the underdeveloped cerebellum is the cause for many of his motor delays. He is 16 years old now but as a baby he was late on his milestones although not super late, despite his brain malformations! He sat at 9 months, walked at 18-19 months. Still, he never did these things with the same quality as his peers. He has poor fine motor skills, his walking and running are "off." He has terrible balance. His speech was delayed and he has apraxia due to the cerebellum issues. The cerebellum controls lots of motor functions so if that is underdeveloped, it will have an impact. If he is seeing delays from all this, it is likely he will not "outgrow" these things but he can compensate for them by getting good physical therapy. My son struggles with MANY things but he also can do many things. He is also quite smart but has learning disabilities, he is a real mixed bag! If she wants to talk to me privately, just let me know. I know how hard it is to go down that path and worry about your child! I can't believe it is 16 years later. I know things could have been much worse for my son but I also had hoped that things would be better than they are. Right now, we need to focus on how to make him as independent as possible as his adulthood is only 2 years away!

Hi Lynne,

Thanks so much for your reply. Was physical therapy enough to completely rehabilitate his physical abilities? If I met your son as a stranger on the street would i know that he had struggled as a child with physical developmental delays? I know it completely depends on the child and what part of the brain was affected, I'm just wondering if this is something he'll outgrow with the help of a physical therapist or will be something that he'll need to concentrate and work on for the rest of his life? Thank you so much for replying, I can tell you are a wonderful mom!!

Nancy,

To answer your question, if you just walked by my son on the street you wouldn't notice anything but if you started to interact with him, you would. His physical delays are still a huge part of his life unfortunately. It is enough that it will impact future employment. It is frustrating because he is smart enough to do many things but I never realized how much motor skills play a role in EVERYTHING we do. I never thought that speech was a skill that was controlled by motor control. He can do most everything - walk, run, talk, write, you name it ... he just can't do it fast enough or well enough to hold down a job in the future. He is an Occupational Course of Study program at the high school where he gets credit for working. At first he works for just for credit (no pay) and senior year he will get paid and credit. It is a great opportunity to see what he is capable of doing in the job world. He just started his first unpaid job at Sears. He goes around and organizes all the clothing that gets messed up by customers and sorts it back to SML order and back into the right colors, etc. However, EVERY single child is DIFFERENT and one thing I learned is you can never judge what your child (or nephew) will do based on what someone else's child does. Although I did like to hear stories of possible outcomes when my son was younger so I was prepared for the realm of possibilities. It is a scary time and I am still coming to terms with my own son's limitations. I had hoped he would be more independent and maybe he will be, he still has time and lots of experiences to go through. I know that I need to push him more too. It is very important to work on PT skills when they are little as the brain is forming and their are "windows of opportunity" for development that do close and you have to take advantage of them when they are open.