Dispraxia

[slalomsuki]

Went to a parents evening yesterday and more than one of the teachers asked me is DS had ever been tested for Dispraxia.

I am a bit confused with this as he has none of the standard symptoms ie not being able to ride a bike, or not be able to catch a ball etc which he can do easily. They have suggested it due to issues with sentence formation in English and not being able to colour in between the lines in Art. He is also struggling with grammar rules.

He is year 7 so I would have thought it might have been picked up before this and he is at a selective school and is performing well.

My question is what do I do from here. How do I get him assessed or supported. The school suggested one of their own tests which he did last year but didn't show anything up and they kind of left me high and dry with info.

The Dyspraxia Foundation seems to advise consulting a GP, though I think that might be aimed at adults more than children. Not a bad place to start, though, if the school are being less than helpful?

But I have to say that if you have never noticed any problems with physical coordination or fine motor control then it sounds like an odd thing to suggest - those things are always top of the list of symptoms.

Thanks for your replies. I will contact the GP.

What's confusing me is he cycles and has no problems, plays tennis and football with no balance or hand to eye/foot issues and plays keyboard. I asked him if his hand gets tired and he says yes when he writes loads but I am not sure if it's any more than me or anybody else. He has never complained about it but his writing is sloppy.

I did a bit of an online test for dispraxia for him but he came out as a very low likelihood so am even more confused.

My ds has had a diagnosis of dyspraxia; he can't cycle or swim, but plays football, basketball and other sports without any problems. However, his handwriting is abysmal, he has only just managed to be able to do shoelaces, small buttons and other fiddly things, and is quite clumsy.

The occupational therapist did a series of tests to find out exactly where the problems were, and his gross motor skills are a little off but not severely so, but he was assessed as having the fine motor skills of a 6yr old (he's 13).

We arranged the tests etc via our GP (we had to insist though); we knew for a while that he was having problems, but between his being bullied badly at primary school and the teachers at that school denying that he had any issues, we didn't get anywhere fast. His high school OTOH are fabulous - and have gone out of their way to help as much as humanly possible.

I think that if his teachers are asking this, then it's worth having the assessment.