Dysgraphia/Dyspraxia/Dyswhat has my son got? Please help

[EgyptNW3]

I have a wonderful 8-year-old son who is struggling at school. He is lively and friendly and has no problems socialising, but his academic progress is beginning to suffer.
He is quite dreamy and finds it hard to concentrate (but does not have ADD or ADHD according to doctors).
He has sensory integration issues according to the OT.
His hand writing is terrible (he is left handed and has fine motor skills problems too according to the OT.)
He hates writing and I think this contributes to his unwillingness to focus on any assignments in class that involve writing.
He seems to have problems recalling what he has learnt recently and what he wants to say. It's like someone has pulled the plug out. His mind just seems to go blank. His teachers say he can spend 20 mins of a 30 min lesson just writing the date at the top of the page.
But on the other hand, when it comes to focussing on a computer game, or a bedtime story or audio tape in the car he can sit in rapt attention.
I am absolutely desperate to understand what is going on and how I can help him. No doctors or specialists seem to have the answer. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any advice very gratefully received. Thanks so much.

Dyspraxia ? tbh there can be an overlap between the differing SLDs including AS/ASD and Auditory Processing. So he may be Dyspraxic with AS and Dyslexic traits for example but these may not in themselevs be defined enough for a full diagnosis. Do you think a diagnosis would help you/him, as I think an awareness of the symptoms and access to help like OT may well be enough for now .

The pulling the plug think could maybe be to do with a poor working memory. FWIW I've seen this before with ADD.

Thank you both so much for those thoughts. I guess he has just got lots of bits of all sorts of things... poor working memory, poor auto-reall, sensory integration issues, dysgraphia, weak core stability, poor fine motor skills, terrible hand writing and lacking concentration. Oh my poor little boy! I just desperately want to find a way to keep him switched on and tuned in, as it were. The frustration is that he is perfectly bright and engaged at times, just not in maths and English lessons!
The school he is at and one or two others I have visited are now even talking about him not being able to do common entrance exams at 13. I'm not a pushy mother at all, I just want him to be happy at whatever secondary school he ends up at, but am so scared people are giving up on him already. Does anyone else have any thoughts???
Thanks again.

I would be very at it being suggested already at 8 that he can't do CE at 13. They may be more focussed on their results than him. ds is about to sit CE (Dyspraxia with AS traits, poor working memory esp for numeracy and ? Auditory Processing). Most of the schools near us operate their own entrance exams at 11/13 anyway so he could be opted out of CE if so or moved sooner. Has he had a proper Educational Psychologist assessment ?

I have never posted on here before, but this sounds just like my 8 year old son. I am at present in the process of getting him checked out by a paedatrician, and on the result of this will go down the statementing route, I truely beleive that my son has dyspraxia, it is so frustrating as he is such a loving and caring young man. His teacher says he will just copy whatever is on the board if unsure of what he has to do. I have had meetings with the class and Senco teacher, who are trying to come up with ways to help him in a typical day in the classroom. Whilst I am grateful for all there help it is just not enough. He has had problems since reception and only now have I finally started to really push, because I thought the school knew best. So do whatever you feel you have to do, at the end of the day he is your main concern. Good Luck x

Thank so much both of you for your thoughts. I have spent the last few days up to my eyes in meetings with teachers at specialist schools, OTs and chiropractors etc. I now feel sure my son has a mix of Dyspraxia, dysgraphia, ADD, sensory integration etc. I understand that all these issues often overlap. I think he has none of them severely, but all added together it does really mean he faces difficulties to operate in a normal class. He has had an Ed Psych report which says he is a bright child but has problems with concentration.
I have been reading about retained primitive reflexes as causing some of the problems. Does anyone know anything about that?
I've also come across the institute of neuro-physiologial psychology (www.inpp.org.uk). The recommend a series of 'exercises' to be done each day to get rid of the retained primitive reflexes. Is their kind of treatment familiar to anyone?
Also, Applied kinesiology has been suggested to have him allergy tested. Any thoughts?
I just wish there was a 'cure' for my little boy that I can help him achieve, but everyone seems to talk just in terms of him developing coping strategies. I'm just so desperate for school life not to be a struggle for him for the next ten years. thanks again for your thoughts and comments.

You could be describing my son, who is now 16, at that age. It is identical. He was also attending a prep school and his difficulties were picked up by a particularly astute senco early on. He had OT and extra tuition by a specialist tutor before school once a week. however even though he made alot of progress these extra 'lessons' outside school were making him upset. After meetings with the headmaster, senco and teachers we decided to move him out of mainstream and into a specialist school with the aim to move him back when he was ready. They would have kept him at the prep school but warned that the final years became much harder and if he was struggling in year 2 it did not look good for year 7/8.

For the sake of his confidence and self-esteem we moved him.

Just to say if your name includes your postcode, he was at a prep school in the same code. He did years 3,4 and 5 at Fairley house and is now preparing for 10 GCSEs at a 'sympathetic' mainstream school.

Don't get too upset. When we met with the Educational psychologist and he saw the look on our faces when he told us the discrepancy between the cognitive and performance sides of his IQ, he told us we had nothing to worry about. Our son simply did not fit in with the education system and would more than likely be very successful once he left school!

I don't understand why you say no specialists can help him . Has he had an Ed Pysch assessment? My DD(8) has dysgraphia, dyspraxia and is very dyslexic. She is increasingly using a computer for all her work and has come on in leaps and bounds since diagnosis in October. She currently has a scribe for all school exams and is developing her use of voice recognition technology as well. Her dysgraphia means that writing is a physical bar to learning. Short term memory is usually poor in dyslexic/dyspraxics but long term memory is often fantastic. He will be absolutely fine as soon as he has proper SEN support at school so please don't worry, just get him properly assessed, and don't worry about CE; a child with greater difficulties than DD passed into his senior school this Autumn having sat all of his CE on a laptop: it is much more common now. He was also astounded to discover that his housemaster at his new school uses Voice recognition technology to create all his reports!.

Could be my ds!

We had a dreadful year 2 and 3 at high powered North London prep before he was diagnosed- dyspraxic, sensory integration problems and auditory processing problems; but basically high IQ. We have a fabulous ed psych who has helped his new (country boarding)school improve his self esteem and confidence. While his maths is still terrible and he struggles to take in and memorise vocabulary and verb endings etc, his English is back on track for his ability.

Still out of my mind with worry about CE and the pre-tests at 10 but I think we are gradually moving in the right direction.

Don't expect miracle cures; but I think the exercises can be helpful. Before he does nay homework etc., have him throw a lemon from one hand to the other 20 times; then do it stading on one leg. Bizarrely, this seems to help!

BCBG Hope you are still looking at this thread as only just got onto Mumsnet and can't work out how to contact you directly. Could you let me know which voice recognition software is used please? Lots of MNetters mention it but can't find a named package on Mumsnet.

Our OT has recommended my DD(10) uses it; SEN unit advised Dragon speak (?) but SENCo says not suitable at such a young age because voice box is immature. Surely there must be something for kids with no hands let alone those with severe dyslexia??? Like your phrase 'writing is a physical bar to learning' - going to use that at meeting next week.

This sounds exactly like my daughter of six. We have known that she was not great at talking since around three, but looking back we thought she was a tad behind, by four we were at the doctor as her co-ordination and speech were behind. Last year we had her at the children's health center who let us know her auditory processing was part and parcel, along with her speech and her bad co-ord. Today we finally got told she is more than likely dysphraxic with more under 'that umbrella' going on.
Though as much as they try and tell you about this 'Umbrella' I am today in utter confusion, as getting told last year 'We cannot diagnose' to this year 'Yes I can say it seems like dysphraxia with a bit of this and a touch of that, we will see you in a year and a half and see what is going on there' - So it is not a diagnosis ... I now have no idea what a bit of this and a tad of that is - and I am now wondering how this 'It is, but I cannot say' works ...
Good Luck with it all - it is not as straight forward as i'd like it lol x

hi, my son has dyspraxia, he sounds just like your son. i hope you get it sorted.

has your son got a statement?

EgyptNW3

From waht you have describes Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) could be an issue.
APD is a listening disability, or not being able to process all that you hear. So those who have APD process some bits but also miss other bits. and living with APD is about best guessing the bits you miss to make sense of the world.

Back to basics regarding APD, those who have APD have problems processing all sound based information, and when very young learning to speak can be a problem processing the speech of others and then reproducing your own speech. Most who have APD learn to speak by reproducing the whole sound of a word, and this means when writing those who have APD can only match the whole sound of a word to the whole shape of the written word. Those who have APD can not use phonics. So unless we have a spell checker our spelling can be terrible.
Those who have APD also have a poor auditory memory which can cause word recall problems, finding the correct word when we need it, and there are usually associated sequencing problems getting correct words or letters in the correct order. Those who have APD have problems explaining what they understand using speech, let alone using a visual notation of speech (the written word)

Currently APD in children id assessed and diagnosed at Great Ormond Street Hospital via a GP referral, it is hoped to have more regional assessment centres in the near future.

Just wanted to add a note of optimism here. My son was diagnosed with dysgraphia at the age of 8. The diagnosis helped all of us to understand what had been going wrong since year 1 and his battered confidence began to repair. At prep school he then had support with slightly more sympathetic teachers and we were able to help him too. He was allowed to hand in all homework in typed form - this entailed him dictating and me typing - and in exams he had a teacher to scribe for him where there was a lot of writing involved, e.g. English, History. This improved his grades by 15% to 20%. He was allowed a scribe for CE. He could never learn his times tables and could never remember how to conjugate verbs but managed to get the necessary grades at CE to enter the school of his choice which has a fantastic SEN department. They have given him wonderful support. He learned to touchtype and never looked back. He uses a laptop in all lessons and does all his exams on computer with extra time allowed. He has just gained 9 gcse's (A*, 5 A's, 3B's - he was allowed to drop French!) and has started AS levels with enthusiasm and confidence with every expectation of success. He is a hard worker! The other thing we did was enrol him on the DORE programme when he was 9 and we think that this helped him a lot (exercises concentrating on eye tracking, balance and coordination) so the standing on one leg and throwing a lemon from one hand to the other doesn't sound at all stupid to me. Sport can help and also something like learning the piano. Try different pens and advice like shaking out hands when muscles start to cramp. We needed an osteopath a couple of times to ease things when it got really bad. Really I just wanted to say that with correct and timely diagnosis and appropriate tailored support from school and home a child can succeed despite innate difficulties.

EgyptNW3

You asked about INPP.

There is a lot of info on Retained Reflexes on on MN, from mums that have followed it also those that have used AIT for auditory issues.

We have just started INPP for our son and I have got so much advice and support here.

EgyptNW3

Just a thought.

If you are planning to test auditory processing, think about addressing it before you start on INPP. Our INPP therapist said best not to do RRT and Auditory at the same time. INPP is a long programme - 18 months. AIT is just 10 days.

Hello,
Please could you mums who have got a diagnosis of dysgraphia tell me who diagnosed your child as I'm struggling to find out where to go to get this done.
Thank you!

My advice to you is to find a specialist teacher to carry out a full assessment. The main objective here is to find out your sons strengths and weaknesses and then give advice to you as parents, your child and also the school. Many of the areas discussed are on a spectrum and one child can have many different difficulties that all need addressing. Specialist teachers can give sound recommendations as they have all been teachers in a busy classroom. They have concentrated their training to become a specialist in specific learning difficulties. Try looking on the PATOSS website to find a suitable teacher, we are all passionate about helping children get the right education they need to show their full potential. Out of interest what is the support like at school now? take a look at the dyspraxia website too lots of helpful info there.

Good luck