Dyspraxia

[lizard1]

My son is going to be assessed for fine motor dyspraxia. My mother however is an english teacher , and remembers when dyspraxia was thought to be a made up thing , she feels that my son is just being difficult , when he is the nicest brightest boy you would ever meet.
The school feels he needs to be assessed and ive had suspicions that something was going on for a while , but when we ruled out dyslexia (his dads dyslexic ) thought nothing more of it . She seems to think that im saying that theres a made up thing wrong with him , when all im trying to say is that he needs a little help that isnt writing practice 24/7 and in his sleep .
Might just explain why he is the way he is so everybody can stop shouting at him -that never helps anybody

[starfish71]

Hi lizard1 my DS1 has dyspraxia (dx'd last year aged 10). He is so much happier now (still struggles with some things obviously) in that we allow him to do the majority of his homework on the computer and just part of it handwritten. I understand him so much more and do feel guilty for the hours we used to argue over getting him to write and how some days he could be quite neat and other days the writing would be awful. Apparently it is part of dyspraxia that just because they can do something well on one day they may not be able to reproduce it again the next. We had a brilliant OT who saw DS for about 6 months (on and off) before we went to clinic for the formal appointment to diagnose him. He is very bright and now is able to do long pieces of work on the computer in school and his confidence is so much better. Hope you don't have long to wait for assement.

[lizard1]

were getting it done privately - my son has his 11 + next year , and the waiting list is currently at 2 yrs+ for an assessment on the nhs . I just dont want him to get disheartened and start playing up in secondry school . He sounds alot like your son , he can do the work verbally standing on his head , but may produce one written sentance and lots of broken pens and pencils in class . It was only last year , when one of the teachers actually spoke to him and started having conversations with him that they thought hang on something isnt adding up here.

[starfish71]

That was why we eventually went for diagnosis because if my son couldn't physically write all the work down which they will have to do in secondary school then bright as he is we were worried he would give up and maybe start going off track. Still got to look at secondary schools to see which will be best for him but have been told he should be able to use a laptop (he has taught himself to touch type! mind you he is computer crazy!) Has made the teachers look at him differently as now he can put all his work and ideas on computer and is really showing how capable he is. If you had just looked at his work books before then everyone thought he wasn't doing too well. That is awful that the waiting list is that long. We too had a fantastic supply teacher in who first suggested that my son may have dyspraxia - owe her alot - finally got me moving!