Dyspraxia and music exams

[disorganisedmummy]

Hi there,I'm after a bit of advice please.My son is 8 and plays the violin.We are hoping he will be doing his grade 1 later this year/early next year.My question is,he is very likely to be Dyspraxic or have at least significant co-ordination problems.We are still waiting for an assessment together with one for ASD.Would he be entitled to any extra time/help in the exam?His sight reading,theory seems very good according to his teacher but he struggles with time keeping.

I would appreciate any advice thanks

There are some special arrangements that are available, though you need to have had some sort of assessment/diagnosis already. There won't be exceptions to anything actually musical - so if you mean time-keeping as in the rhythm of a piece, for example, that would be marked as normal, but they can make arrangements to give them extra time for looking at the sight-reading in advance, or more attempts at the aural tests, or clearer/simplified instructions, or arranging the order of elements in the exam in the most familiar way, or allowing scale books for reference if candidates are likely to forget the patterns because of short term memory problems, etc. If the examiner knows the candidate has some kind of additional need, then a few minutes longer is already built into the scheduled exam time, and they will be aware of the need to communicate well, that the candidate might have increased anxiety over unfamiliar people, and so on.

Some of the possible arrangements are detailed here: Special Exam arrangments

that link was for ASD arrangements.

This one contains information about dyspraxia or dyslexia arrangements: More special arrangements

Thanks very much for that. That's exactly what I'm after. It does all depend on whether DS gets a diagnosis though.

Those links are also just for the ABRSM exams; I am sure the other exam boards will have similar arrangements.

It might be that a letter from the school or GP documenting his difficulties will be enough, even if it doesn't have a specific label or diagnosis on the letter, as long as they explain clearly what difficulties he has and what extra support he needs/has in school, etc.; they seem quite open to actually looking at individual cases and discussing what is needed for the exams to be accessible, so it is probably worth contacting them even if he does not get an official or formal diagnosis.

disorganisedmummy, if school recognises your ds difficulties they may provide a letter to an examining body explaining the situation. Try to discuss this with SENCO. My dd did not have any diagnosis but school treated her as having one and sent a letter to ABRSM and dd was granted extra time.