Tell me about your just-turned three year old

[squirrlygirl]

What can your just-turned/going to turn-soon three year old do? Can she (or he) do stairs well? Does she recognize animals, shapes, colors? Does she know what letters look like? Can she recognize simple pictures such as of a house or a smiley face? Can you understand her when she talks? Can she drink from a standard cup? Use a spoon? create masterpieces? (and anything else along the same lines..)

I'm pretty sure dd is behind, but I'm not sure how far behind. She was born with bilateral congenital ptosis, which means her eyelids covered her pupils. She had surgery in January to correct it, but her vision has gotten worse anyway.

She has glasses ordered, and will be evaluated again by her doctor here shortly, but right now I'm just looking for a real-world gauge of the average 36-month old. What's he/she capable of?

 

[nmmom95]

My boys are 6 & 11, but when they were little, I always used this website:
http://www.babycenter.com/0_what-to-expect-this-year-social-cognitive-and-physical-miles_72303.bc
I hope everything goes well with her vision.

 

[AshleyW]

What can your just-turned/going to turn-soon three year old do? Can she (or he) do stairs well? Does she recognize animals, shapes, colors? Does she know what letters look like? Can she recognize simple pictures such as of a house or a smiley face? Can you understand her when she talks? Can she drink from a standard cup? Use a spoon? create masterpieces? (and anything else along the same lines..)

I'm pretty sure dd is behind, but I'm not sure how far behind. She was born with bilateral congenital ptosis, which means her eyelids covered her pupils. She had surgery in January to correct it, but her vision has gotten worse anyway.

She has glasses ordered, and will be evaluated again by her doctor here shortly, but right now I'm just looking for a real-world gauge of the average 36-month old. What's he/she capable of?

First, I hope everything works out well with her vision

I don't have kids, but I watch a 3 year old pretty regularly for a friend of mine. She just turned 3 in July, but she was born 3.5 months premature and was in a NICU for a long time as a baby, so she's a little behind on some things.

For your questions.. she does stairs okay, but usually scoots on her butt going down the stairs. She recognizes animals, shapes, colors, pictures, etc. Her mom stays at home with her and they do a lot of educational stuff during the day, so she's doing pretty well with that. I can understand her probably 90% of the time when she talks, every once in awhile she gets too excited and jumbles up her sentences and words. She CAN use a regular cup, but not well, so she still uses a sippy cup for the most part. She can't really use a spoon very well, either. Most of what she eats is finger foods. When I give her applesauce in a small bowl, she usually just drinks it from the bowl, haha.

 

[kidshop]

My dd will be 3 in 2 months. She has 2 older brothers so she has learned a lot from them. She knows all her letters, can count to 20, knows shapes, colors, animals etc. She does do stairs well (one foot per step), we have a 2-story house so she get practice. I understand about 75% of what she says. She can drink from a regular cup (we still use spill proof mostly) and use a fork/spoon.

If you do think your dd is behind, get a referral for testing. There is so much early therapy can do. In our area it is free through the school system. Good luck!

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

I sure hope the glasses help! I think little ones in glasses are so cute!

My 33 month old is a little nightmare but besides that she can:

Go up and down stair
Use fork and spoon
Drink from a regular cup
ABC's
Count 1-10
Colors and some shapes

It sounds like the things you are mentioning are directly related to sight. If her vision improves with the glasses I would think she would catch up rather quickly.

 

[CJ's Mommy]

All the things you mentioned, my DS was doing at 2 years old. I hope you get the help you are looking for, and as others mentioned, her vision probably has a lot to do with most of that stuff. Good luck!

 

[squirrlygirl]

That's what I was thinking...she is the youngest of 4, and while there's clearly nothing wrong with her brain (oh some of the high-level stuff that pops out of her mouth sometimes ) she's not at the level her siblings were at. I suspect her speech is behind because of the vision, too. She can talk about herself quite well, but can't pick out a picture of a pig in a book. If you ask her what sound a pig makes, she knows it, though.

The surgery was supposed to stop the slide in the vision deterioration, but it didn't. Hopefully the glasses do.

 

[mjkacmom]

I don't have a 3 year old, but I would've answered yes to each of your questions. If she is having trouble with speech, please contact your department of health or school district for a free evaluation. Ds6 received ST from 20 months until the age of 3, when he aged out of EI, and didn't qualify for the 3+ program. You should be able to easily understand a 3 year old, and the earlier a child receives therapy, the better.

 

[fimac]

What parts of her vision are affected ? If her near sight is affected it would affect many of the things that you mentioned and a problem with depth perception would affect stair climbing.

We had a friend whose youngest son had vision problems that were not noticed for 5 years. He was considered slow developmentally, but once he had his glasses thing were much better.

 

[squirrlygirl]

What parts of her vision are affected ? If her near sight is affected it would affect many of the things that you mentioned and a problem with depth perception would affect stair climbing.

We had a friend whose youngest son had vision problems that were not noticed for 5 years. He was considered slow developmentally, but once he had his glasses thing were much better.

She is mildly nearsighted (enough to need glasses full-time, though), and she has severe astigmatism in both eyes. The opthamologist said that the two combined means she does not see anything clearly at any range, especially when you add in that the two eyes are significantly different prescriptions.

I think the problem is that at her 2-year evaluation she was only mildly behind. But now that she's approaching three, she just hasn't progressed as much as the average kid which has put her back even farther.