What is causing tripping and clumsiness - gross motor skills OK??

[mrsbaffled]

Hello, not been on for a few weeks. Hope you are all OK?
DS1(7.5) had an appt with physio today to do a full assessment with regard to dyspraxic tendancies.

She has discharged him with exercises to build up his upper body strength, and advised us to remind him not to lock his hypermobile elbows into the overextended position.

However, she says his balance and gross motor skills are fine and is not dyspraxic. BUT WHY OH WHY does he keep falling over and bumping himself? Plus the constant wriggling??! She had no thoughts on this :S Do yuo think his vision tracking problems could be responsible??

We are still waiting on his pack from OT to help with the fine motor problems, and a specialist teacher should be going into school to observe him soon, to deal with his problem in getting down what's in his head onto paper.

Hypermobility causes very poor proprioception (where one is in space) principally because the muscles arent giving sufficient feedback and information to the brain. Children with poor proprioception will always misjudge doorways, fall over their feet etc because they literally are not sure where they are. The continual wriggling is his attempt to gain sufficient feed back. Where possible get him to lie on the floor with as much contact to the floor as possible as he will then experience good solid feedback. If he can lie on the floor to write you will get far more out of him!
Other good techniques to improve proprioception include log rolling/rolling in a blanket/joint compression (last is very good for hypermobile joints as it sends messages to brain). Simple Simon Says games are very effective. get him to lie on his tummy and tell him to lift the limb you are going to touch. If he has poor proprioception, he will find this initially very hard but will improve over time.
HTH
Btw-its perfectly possible to be dyspraxic and have good gross motor skills-its the motor PLANNING thats the problem

Could it be some sensory processing problems, especially those to with Proprioception and Vestibular?

Cross posts with Oddgirl

She explained it much better than me :o

hmm - he wouldn't be classed as 'hypermobile' as only his elbows, little fingers and I think shoulder blades are effected (not knees or feet).

I think the pead thought he was at the bottom end of the motor planning spectrum, but I haven't got her report through yet, and am feelling a little muddled about what's going on(!) The physio got him to walk along a straight line forwards and backwards foot after foot - would this not have picked up on motor planning issues??

He defintely has some sensory issues, particularly with touch and hot/cold, and noise. ....

Thank you so much for your feedback x

The walking foot after foot is to test balance rather than motor planning. He may be classed as hypotonic (low tone) which causes similar problems. Poor core strength is an indicator of this-does he appear rather floppy?Does he "W" sit?

Dont know if I am barking up your tree or the wrong one but DS has sensory issues and is forever bumping into things purely because he is impulsive and so visual and has to absorb everything he sees. He locks on to something and forgets what he was actually doing. On top of this he is sensory seeking and cannot for the life of him sit still. He has to wriggle, chance position, stand up sit down etc and also feels the need to jump. They also think the distraction and fiddling is also to do with auditory filtering issues ie hearing something, not liking it and running for it or hearing something and rushing off to investigate :)

what oddgirl said: constant wriggling and falling over (due to poor proprioception) is typical of hypermobility syndrome.

and he could be classified as hypermobile by the sounds of it: it doesn't have to involve all joints

oddgirl he flops (or lols as I call it), but the physio said he had good core strength (I wish I did, but that's another story... LOL!) - she got him to do the bridge and things like that and did OK in them, so I think he just does it in a flighty sort of way.... He doesn't W sit.

coff33pot he is definitely easily distracted by sounds, and forgets whet he is supposed to be doing when I ask him to do things - getting dressed takes a long time as he forget why he went upstairs, for example.

cory wouldn't the physio have said if she thought he had hypermobility syndrome?? I wish we would get some written reports back soon(!)

We were discharged (from physio) today. i get the feeling we will be fobbed off with "he's within normal" for everything. But something's clearly not right. He's an extremely bright boy, and I would hate him not to reach his potential.

mrsbaffled. does he have mp3 player or ipod? Reason why is I have this week given ds one. With it on he is able to sit still at home and write, walked in a straight line to school without fidgeting (didnt stop the visual picking out of things but he talked about them instead of rushing at it) I also managed to dress him and he put his trousers on without fuss. He played lego for 20 mins without fidgeting today so it keeps him rooted and his mind on what he is doing with no other distracting sounds.

He was focusing on 1 thing the music and was able to do things that are impossible. Have a go and see if it makes a slight difference. If it does arrange to see OT :)

How interesting coff what sort of music was on it?

It was purely music of DS choice. He loves lady gaga so that was on it and phineaus and feb album and some top chart stuff, even some 80s from Dad We mess around dancing quite a bit for energy release so we kind of get an inkling what he likes from what he picks from the sky remote

DS would choose things like the macarena, saturday night and stuff like mika!

maybe listening to the ipod helps him to concentrate-children with sensory processing issues (and this includes both vestibular and proprioception senses as well as auditory etc) often need to move to concentrate so maybe this is just another attempt to redirect messaging. There is no doubt that my DS (6 with dyspraxia/ASD traits, hypermobility) has huge sensory processing issues. I am pretty sure he cant smell (never commented on smell at all), has auditory processing problems (hearing fine), fidgets continually.
All this has been hugely helped by doing retained reflex therapy with Hemispheres-different child now but the haul was long!

what about depth perception issues? there wasa threadalittle while ago i think. some depth perception problems can besolved with vision therapy

cory "wouldn't the physio have said if she thought he had hypermobility syndrome?? I wish we would get some written reports back soon(!)"

The definition of hypermobility syndrome is simply "hypermobility with pain". Which he has, by the sounds of it. But it is often connected with problems with balance and proprioception. A physio might be reluctant to diagnose anything, anyway; not really their job.

And even plenty of doctors don't know much about hypermobility: one diagnosed dd' s hypermobility syndrome as psychosomatic, despite the fact that her joints were definitely bending the wrong way.

cuppa we are going to get vision therapy to help with the tracking issues. i think depth perception is OK.

cory it's an undeniable fact he has some hypermobile joints - how strange they said your DD's was psychosomatic!

My DS has pain on writing, but it's hard to tell if it's real (avoidance technique) or physical. I think the latter as he has ALWAYS said this since tiny (so under no pressure by school) and when cutting with scissors.