Gross motor skills developmental delay

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DS 1yr, has been diagnosed with gross motor skills developmental delay, amoungst other things.

I'm not at all surprised or worried tbh as he's had to fight a very tough battle in his first year with numerous hospital stays and has come close to losing his battle on more than one occasion.

Anyone any experience of this and can tell me what to expect when his community paediatrician is introduced?

Hi
My DD had delayed gross motor skills. She crawled at 15 months and walked at 20 months. She has co-ordination problems caused by lack of oxygen at birth.

A community paed will just make an assessment and hopefully ensure that your DS is getting the help and support he needs from various specialists e.g. physio, OT, Portage, SALT.

Glad to hear your DS has come through a difficult year - must have been very stressful for you..

Hey Minty

Thanks for the reply and posting your/DD experience.

Yes, this last year was truly heartbreaking at times but DS is here, he made it and I thank my lucky stars for that!!

DS has SALT already as cleft palate and oral food sensory disorder.

I thought we might get physio and OT. What's Portage? This hasn't been mentioned yet.

Portage is a great service working with pre-school children delayed in more than one area e.g. motor skills, speech, cognitive development.

We weren't able to have it for DD as she was only delayed physically but it would have been really useful as the workers are very supportive and will work with lo at home. OT has been quite useless tbh - I get more useful stuff off the internet but physio is good!

Is your DS able to go swimming?

I agree, physio is fantastic. My ds1 wasn't rolling over, getting himself to sitting, bottom shuffling, crawling, pulling to stand or walking at 15 months. The physio showed us how to teach him how to do all these things and he was walking by 23 months. OT provided absolutely minimal advice and we never got nor were offered portage - my cynical opinion on that is that you are more likely to be offered it if there is a known cause for your ds's problems, as otherwise they can claim your child might catch up on their own, until it's obvious that they won't... (it's not as if it wasn't obvious that ds had problems months before he reached 15 months).

Ds1 is now a healthy, active 6-year old. He does have very hypermobile joints, though (he has a diganosis of Ehlers Danlos syndrome, hypermobile type, which doesn't really explain why he needed to be taught certain motor skills, but at least provides a partial explanation), which cause a few issues, and one or two other little eccentricities! He's exceptionally bright, though, and I think his intelligence has helped him learn the movement skills he found it so difficult to grasp naturally. That and his mother being very bossy...

The community paed, as said, will take a thorough history, do basic assessments and refer your ds on to anyone else he or she thinks may be helpful, whether physio/OT/portage or a specialist in another area of medicine (my ds saw a neuromuscular specialist and a geneticist over the years, as well as having a couple of blood tests).

LOL at you being bossy Rabbitstew....... I think given this last years interaction with DS's various teams of carers, docs, nurses, surgeons etc, I too am bossy mummy. I am also, unfortunatley, shouty mummy when no-one appears to be listening!!!

Thank you for posting what to expect and your experiences.

Minty - swimming yes, I suppose even with his NG in? God, I dreamt last night he was at a swimming pool, aged about 5.......... how weird

Anyway, we could take him but I'd need help as have mobility issues and find it hard to cope in water. I will look into it. Do you think it will help DS?