Letter from the community paediatrician states that ds is dyspraxic but...

[LadySybilDeChocolate]

he's not been tested for this yet It also states that he talked about a variety of things when he spoke to her, is this her hinting that he doesn't have ASD??

Doesn't give you much faith in them, does it? Do you think she means he 'appeared' dyspraxic to her? Or has she just got it wrong?

There's a lot of crossover between dyspraxia and ASD, IMO, so if she thinks he's dyspraxic it would be hard to rule out ASD if it was a first appointment? Next appointment make sure you have a list of questions for her, including 'Could he have ASD?' 'What do you think he may have, what's on your list of possibilities,' etc.

She's said he's dyspraxic. He hasn't been tested for it yet, she's referring him to a physio for this (I thought OT's diagnosed this also??). I told her that I didn't think he has ASD. My nephew is on the scale (aspergers), he's nothing like ds. My sister can't have a conversation with my nephew as he'll ignore her to talk about door numbers or types of car. There's no steering his attention away from this at all. She has given me a form to fill in about ds though.

I hope you are right, then. But it's a very wide and deep spectrum, your DS could be very different from his cousin yet still be somewhere on the spectrum. The fact that you feel he's borderline at most is encouraging, though? It's a tricky thing, you don't want them to have an ASD, or be misDXed certainly, but to get support a DX can be really useful. What are your concerns?

He's argumentative. This is the main problem as he will argue with his teachers as he doesn't like to back down. I've tried to help him with this and he is making progress, it's just slow. His 'clumsyness' is an issue also as he'll fall into the road. Social skills wise he's not great but he is learning. He's an only child and doesn't have many friends here as his school is in the next county. I try to get him out of the house and socialising (games workshop), he a WIP. School have flagged up his conversational skills as he will argue and can be quite abrupt.

Social deficits and clumsiness. Could be dyspraxia, but only an expert will know for sure. My DS2 is obviously ASD and seems quite dyspraxic, but my knowledge of dyspraxia is limited. The child I am a 1:1 TA for is dyspraxic and has an ASD DX, but the dyspraxia seems worse than the ASD with him. I'm surprised the paed is talking physio rather than OT, though.

The paed referred DS to physio for query dyspraxia too. I think it depends on your area. However a friend got a dx of dyspraxia from paed on first visit in the same area.

Ah, Ok. Thank you His social skills are improving, there's just the one teacher he doesn't get on with. All of the others think he's great. He's good at home, very considerate and well behaved apart from the arguing. He is hypermobile, he has insoles in his shoes and he finds it painful to walk. I don't know if the hypermobility is masking the dyspraxia (if he does have this), his handwriting is messy, he struggles to fasten buttons and can't use a kinfe and fork very well but he says it makes his hands hurt to do these things. He's very clumsy, he'll walk into things and knock things over all the time. He can't hit a ball and didn't learn how to ride his bike without stabilisers until he was 10 but he's a computer whizz and can type faster then I can. He can't pick up tone of voice very well though, he says I'm shouting at him when I'm not. He'll then become very defensive, which is when he starts to argue. I think this is what's happening with the teacher at school.

He's also really disorganised. He can put his shoes by the door, then ask me if I've seen them a minute later. He looses everything.

Lady you have listed a lot of things here which would indicate Dyspraxia.
Dyspraxia would generally be disgnosed jointly by a Psychologist (preferably clinical rather than EP) and an OT.
Movement difficulties (as assessed by OT) combined with an assessment by the Psych showing higher verbal component skills than performance skills is more or less the gold standard for a Dyspraxia diagnosis.
Children on the ASD spectrum can have a wide variety of problems - not just in the social domain. They may have sensory processing difficulties, hypermobility, low muscle tone, dyspractic movements.

The Paedx role is to exclude any other diagnosis that could cause the movement problem (e.g. muscular dystrophy or other more sinister illnesses).

To me what you have describe warrants being investigated for both ASD or Dyspraxia. Hard to tell from here. The ''argumentativeness'' - is it his character or is it that he has difficulty switching channels in speech or does he not recognise the 'rule' of listening to teacher. The falling off the edge of pavements- is it a visual perceptual problem or is it a balance one?

Don't know.

Kids with both ASD and dyspraxia can have poor personal organisation skills.

All in all, I think you are warranted to chase more investigation- but it sounds as if you are getting that??

Ds is very verbal/articulate. He has been since he was 1. He excells in languages and maths, he's great at English. The only subject he struggles with is PE. He's always argued (or asked questions) so I don't really know if it's just his character. He doesn't argue all the time though, I think he can't differentiate patterns of speech (hence why he'll say I'm shouting when I'm not). He does understand sarcasm if it's written down but not always when spoken, he can take things literally unless they are spoken in an abrupt way so I do think it's a processing problem. Balance wise, I don't know. His feet are fairly floppy due to the hypermobility so he has a tendency to trip up over them. He's quite heavy footed when he walks, like a toddler IYKWIM.

He does relate to people, he's empathetic and considerate. He's able to change routine without any problems. I've no idea.

Have you seen a SALT? Sounds as if that might be an interesting discussion too? His understanding of pragmatic language especially?

No. His speech has never been an issue as he's always been advanced in this (very advanced). He's been speaking in sentences since he was 12 months, reading since he was 3. I'm not sure what they do to be honest.

Sorry...putting sick kids to bed.
Do you mean what do SALT's do?
They could look at how he uses language, his understanding of social rules in language, his ability to 'change channel' while talking, whether his receptive language (what he takes in) is at the same level as his expressive (what he says).
I was surprised at the gap in these for my very fluent speaking DS. I knew he had difficulty following what I said and it wasn't clear whether he had a difficulty processing what he heard, understanding the words or what was going on.
For kids at the high functioning end of the autistic spectrum; their use of language has different patterns to NT.
A child with Dyspraxia would prob not have speech/language problems..although some would also have verbal dyspraxia and so have difficulty moving their oral muscles for particular sounds.

Ah, I see. Thank you. That would help him learn about tone of voice. I think I may be part of his problem. I'm a single parent so spend most of my time being normal and patient with him. I don't like telling him off. He's a lovely boy but can be so abrupt sometimes. I try to explain why this is innapropriate but I end up shouting at him because he just argues with me. I'll try to stop him from arguing but he carries on and will be really abrupt about what I've said. I should look at the way I deal with this because I don't think I'm helping. I don't really know what to do.

I hope your children are feeling better It's horrible when they are ill.

Oh Lady how sad to think that you see yourself as part of the problem. It is hard when our kids have difficulties and it is tempting to turn it in as a failure of parenting.
I also find difficulties with communicating are very frustrating and it's easy to get to the point of shouting in an attempt to get them to understand.
Before I got a diagnosis I found this a great help to help me get through to him. This is the book of a course I just started and I hope will also help.

Sorry thats really going away from the Dyspraxia issue but sounds as if the communication is something you are concerned about too.

It's hard when you're mum and dad. I'm not certain that the communication problems isn't part of the Dyspraxia (if he does have this). He's an incredibly bright boy and he's always steered himself towards the adults around him because he can relate to them better then children his own age. He wants to be respected but he gets so anxious when he's told off that he'll just argue in order to try to explain why he's done something. I need to look at the way I deal with him, I'm tempted to let him say what he needs to, then tell him but I don't want to make things worse at school.

Thank you