DD is nearly 7 and has a very very very minor hearing loss in one ear. For her whole life she has been accident prone/had poor balance/coordination, but it feels like a bit more than that. These two points are likely unrelated - 1) A hearing specialist said as much and 2) DD2 who is in the same boat is not accident prone at all, in fact her reflexes/balance/coordination are outstanding. For a while I thought they were linked and school who also commented on these things referred her for physio.
Examples. She will regularly walk into people, sometimes because she isn't paying attention but mostly because she doesn't seem to judge where they are. She spills drinks probably 2-3 times a day. She falls over/bangs/hurts herself in various ways that doesn't happen to others, largely because she has not judged the consequence of what might happen. She often tries to squeeze into spaces that aren't possible to squeeze into which always has a negative consequence. Her balance is poor which means she struggles to carry things without spilling/knocking/dropping things. She also struggles to sit properly (only with her legs behind her) and with things like using cutlery properly (could be totally unrelated). Even as a baby she was very heavy handed - until DD2 I just thought this is how babies/children were. I should add that every time I see it coming I warn her and try to support her by teaching her what consequences will happen if she carries on doing what she's doing and I do remind her to try and go a bit more slowly, but it just seems to not compute.
Her physio had originally said she thought her core needed strengthening and that this would lead to better balance and coordination and that once she felt more solid she wouldn't have as many accidents. Yesterday she said that she didn't feel that although she's been working hard and has improved at some of the exercises themselves she doesn't feel that they're having the desired effect. She can see what I'm talking about and feels that DD is not seeing consequences or being able to see danger. For example she was launching herself into the exercises despite both myself and the physio telling her to slow down and the physio physically guiding her several times to stop her from hurting herself. On one occasion she accidentally kicked the physio in the head where she couldn't see the consequence of the position she was getting herself into.
At her initial assessment a senior physio passed comment about assessing for dyspraxia. However there's been no comment about this since. I'm going to email her physio to discuss my concerns as I don't like doing it in front of DD because I don't want to give her a complex.
However - I'm posting because I'm wanting to know if anyone else has a similar experience?
I'm very conscious that I don't want to push for something (eg dyspraxia) that doesn't exist and force a diagnosis on her if this is just something that she'll grow out of or is something that lots of children go through. I should add that DH is VERY accident prone - he breaks things 2-3 times a week where he doesn't seem to have foresight and he often bangs his head and hurts himself. So maybe it's just something she gets from him!