Velo-Cardio- Facial Syndrome - Unique - The Rare Chromosome ...

Appearance
Children with VCFS may look similar, although the facial characteristics noted are often
very subtle and are actually variants of normal. They often have a small mouth and chin,
a broad bridge to the nose, and sometimes small ears with overfolded or thickened
rims. Facial features change with age and the nose may become slightly more prominent
in adulthood. Other features may include a slightly open mouthed expression and
abundant scalp hair.
Development: sitting, moving, walking (gross motor skills)
Some people with VCFS will have entirely normal development, but often they are a
little slow to reach their developmental motor milestones with delays in learning how
to crawl and walk in comparison to other children. This could be due to your child
being very sick and spending time in hospital or be due to problems associated with the
deletion such as poor motor skills, muscle tone (hypotonia) and lack of co-ordination.
Hypotonia affects most children with VCFS and often improves as children mature;
nonetheless, early physiotherapy and occupational therapy can be beneficial.
Some children will only have mild delays others will have more significant
problems. The Unique experience is that babies start to roll between 3 months and 12
months (average 8 months); sit between 6 months and 20 months (average 10 months)
and crawl between 6 months and 21 months (average 13 months). Independent walking
was mastered between 12 months and 2 years 10 months (average 19 months).
The average age for walking for children with VCFS in the medical literature is 12
months, although many children walk
later and up to 18 months is
considered normal. The majority of
children go on to walk, skip, hop,
climb stairs and run, although they can
be unsteady with poor balance (Fine
2005; Unique).
He is fast crawling and now starting
to walk. He climbs everything! – 20
months
She is fine sitting, walking and
running (sort of), can jump (just) and
can walk up the stairs holding on to
the rail. Outdoors she is a bit more
wobbly – I think we are also more
nervous of her falling down and
hurting herself outside. She is
confident walking and running on
grass, but uneven pavements are more
tricky – 3 years
She has no mobility problems – 8
years
Her mobility is fine although she is
slow with stairs – 25 years
8