Dyspraxia - Please advise

[thatsenough]

DS is year 1 (5.10) and has struggled from pre-school with his pencil grip. Anything that involves writing more than a few words for homework is generally a nightmare, although he is happy to do numeracy homework and as his reading seems to be good (New Way Green level - not sure how this compares to ORT)and he brings a new book home at least 3 times a week.

For a while we have been thinking he may have dyspraxia, in addition to the pencil grip problem, his general co-ordination and upper body strength is quite poor and he is prone to (very) emotional outbursts over nothing. He is generally very caring to his two younger brothers, but does get frustrated when things don't go his way.

He attends a small prep school (class size 11) who have been great at playing down any problems and his recent exam results of 87% in English and 83% in Maths were about average. BUT he is starting to notice the difference himself and is now refusing to go to his tennis lessons because "he is not very good at it", he has also said he doesn't want to continue swimming, but is happy with his small ski group.

So after a week of having a far more emotional little boy than normal we have parents evening tonight - Do I bring any of this up with his teacher? Or am I reading too much into the situation?

My DH says that I spend far too much time worrying about it, whereas I think he is burying his head in the sand!

Appologies if I have posted in the wrong section, but I am new to Mumsnet.

Sorry, yellowkiwi - I think the length of time depends on how long the waiting list in your area is and how important the OT deems your child's needs to be (based on ignorance because she doesn't have time to do a proper assessment...).

My ds1 was first referred to OT several years ago. After several months, she saw him for 5 minutes because she didn't have time to do a proper assessment, then gave us a few sheets of very silly ideas that didn't take account of his personality or actual difficulties.

We were then referred again about six months ago, have still heard nothing and in the meantime have had a diagnosis of aspergers syndrome, many of the symptoms of which could have been picked up a long time ago by an OT doing a proper assessment. With an actual diagnosis, if we don't get to see the OT pretty d*mn soon, I will be more than a little bit annoyed!!!!!

Yellowkiwi - speaking from experience start chasing up the referral. There is every chance that you are lost in the system after all this time. If the referral is found and still on the wait list then kick up a fuss about the time taken to get your DS seen.

Had difficulty getting school to arrange assessment for dyslexia they claimed its an 18 month wait Then i heard parent can phone local education department and ask to speak to the psycologist to arrange assesment free it only took two or three weeks .School not pleased dont know if its changed lately the psycologist was great

It certainly works to contact the person to whom you are being referred directly - a kind of push, you could say, to let them know that you are expecting to at least be informed where on the waiting list you are. If you want anything useful out of it, you then have to keep on pushing and telling the powers that be that they haven't been helpful, or helpful enough, yet. Otherwise you get the absolute bare minimum, unless you are paying someone privately (in which case you may be paranoid that you are paying for something that might not work!).

My son now 11 was diagnosed dyspraxic at age 7 in year 3 at school after a lot of complaints from the teacher about his behaviour and level of work. SEN at school referred him to an OT and she was fantastic, son was given pencil grips to help make his pen hold less uncomfortable. He was also given a cushion which was a fabulous thing and gave him the confidence and ability to sit still in class. it works by allowing minor movement, but as the cushion is only partly filled with air the person sitting on it feels like they are moving lots. apparently dyspraxic's need to connect with the world in a more physical way and moving on the seat is one way of doing this.

Get your school SEN to referre him asap. You will notice a dramatic improvement in your child both at home and in school as soon as he realizes he isn't naughty or stupid but has something wrong with him.

Unfortunately, it is not always pure dyspraxia that causes the problems (eg it may be more low muscle tone or hypermobility, or another learning disability which causes some dyspraxic-like symptoms) and unfocused advice can feel like a waste of time for, eg, children who already sit still in class and wonder why they have to sit on a cushion to do so. Proper assessment is required before helpful advice can be given... and for proper advice, you need an OT to give a proper, unrushed assessment (and may also need other experts to be involved, if the real cause of the problems is not clear to the OT).
My experience of the OT my ds1 has seen so far is that she has never assessed him properly and I had to go via all sorts of other specialists to prove this was the case before I could go back and ask for her job to be done properly.