4 year old large motor skills

[Catherine2255]

I had a meeting with my sons teacher today, she said that she is concerned with his large body movements. She said when he sits at the table his head rolls to the side, he has difficulty sitting still at the table and she thinks he isnt even aware that he is doing it as even though he is making strange movements he is not doing it to be naughty.

I spoke to my sister in law who said she agrees, when he runs he rocks his head from side to side and is very clumsy, as a toddler he was never steady on his feet and it took him a long time to keep his balance when walking.
His speech is excellent and advanced for his age, but he has trouble holding a pencil and using scissors too.

I'm waiting to speak to my health visitor to see if we can investigate it further but I must admit that I am very concerned, any ideas on what it is?

Dyspraxia or maybe a degree of hyperflexibility in his joints ? He could be referred to Occupational Therapy for an assessment and programme of exercises, although 4 is still early for pencil grip and scissors to be of serious concern.

Have a look here. affects 1:5 , mainly boys

We have just got a diagnosis of dyspraxia for the same symptoms that you have. I must say that you have a very supportive school esp as they are understanding that he isn't being naughty with the fidgeting.

Thanks for the link, although he doesnt have all of the symptoms, some of the symptoms he has are:

Hands flap when running

Difficulty with pedalling

Poor fine motor skills. Difficulty in holding a pencil or using scissors

He does seem to have problems making friends, they get annoyed with him, but when he was in playgroup before he started school he had one friend who he was very close to.

Laterality (left- or right-handedness) still not established

Limited response to verbal instruction. May be slow to respond and have problems with comprehension - sometimes you have to tell him to do things many times because he is in a world of his own.

It does sort of fit but he does have quite an imagination, but then again there are probably different levels and types of Dyspraxia.

He sounds exactly like my ds2 was Catherine. He has dyspraxia or dcd (development co-ordination delay)
He was a hand flapper, from 5-8 the ticks were terrible, his gross motor skills were very poor, his handwriting / fine motor skills were also poor, but exactly as you say, he had/has fantastic speech, a massive vocabularly, a wonderful imagination.
It took until yr 3 for the professionals to be involved, but since then we've had sessions with the OT, he had a pencil grip, special cushion, writing slope.
For a number of years he took part in the fizzy programme, this is a school run session for dyspraxia / motor skills. He would do clay work or throwing, trampolining, catching...all sorts of stuff. If your school is on board there is a chance they run this alread.
Now in yr 5 he is a different child.. no, he will never be a good swimmer, he'll probably never be able to ride a bike, but this year he has some friends, he plays football, he's included. His writing is better, not brilliant, but better and soon all the things that mark him out as different, won't matter at all.
Try not to worry too much (says she who worried constantly )
and feel free to ask anything!

What ticks do you mean? he is has started to mumble under his breath when I read to him (like he is trying to read with me!) but a few weeks ago he started stuttering (its gone now thank god) but it had me worried.

When we go to parties, he does seem like the odd one out, the other kids seem a lot more grounded, the only thing I really worried about was him making friends, it wasnt until the teacher pointed it out to me that I saw the other symptoms.

He's my first child and we dont have any other kids in the family so we always thought his behaviors were normal.

Hand flapping mainly Catherine, but general twitching,tongue licking, moving all the time.
He finds it very hard to stay still. He's oversensitive to touch, so no socks with seams or jeans with waistbands. he only likes certain fabrics and elasticated waists. Oversensitive to noise, so he doesn't like loud sound, it's too overwhelming.
So what do you mean by grounded?
I'm here with dh atm, bit drunk
thinking what to say about ds2 and it seems so normal to us.
Ds2's quirks make him! He's fabulous.,interesting, quirky, bright. We wouldn't want to change him really, as long as he's happy. It's the best you can hope for