He was floppy from birth and had trouble holding his head up and he slouched when we sat him up. He couldn't sit by himself until he was 9 1/2 months, but it wasn't until he was 12 months old that a doctor told us he had hypotonia. He did see a neurologist for about 15 minutes who confirmed he had hypotonia and ordered a blood test but no other testing was done. My son was also tested by people from our state's early intervention program--an OT and I think the other person was a child development specialist. They said he tested 50% delayed in motor skills but his receptive and expressive language skills were 50% advanced. They said it was very unusual for a child with this kind of motor delay and weakness to be as advanced as he was in other areas and they had not seen another child like him. They saw him look at the alphabet book, look at the letter A and say it. They said they could do therapy and it would be free but he would have to get his doctor's approval. The doctor wouldn't sign anything. I still don't understand why. I think he wanted to wait and see if my son improved without intervention and my son did walk at 18 1/2 months.
My son never had any trouble with his speech. He didn't have any trouble nursing as a baby. The hypotonia didn't seem to affect his mouth at all. He has always talked a lot, was very social, smiled at people more as a baby than his very social sister did. When he started walking at 18 1/2 months I thought he was okay, especially since the doctors didn't say otherwise at regular checkups. He started reading on his own one year after he started walking. He often sat in the W position and leaned against things for support, but I thought nothing could be done for hypotonia because that is what we were told.
