handedness - RRT, OT, I've confused myself.

[bochead]

I've done so much reading re all the different therapy options I've just confused myself and am hoping you guys can help signpost me in the right direction once more. If I try and describe him a bit can you help? Summats not quite right and this is the layer of the onion I've dedicated 2012 to getting sorted.

DS doesn't yet have a dominant hand at 7.5.

He writes with his left hand
(only in the last few months after doing the Theodurescu Programme since last Easter, it has made a real difference.) School have moved him off the Pscale recently to level 1c.

He uses scissors with his right hand. He draws with his right hand.

Shoe laces and ball catching are a bust, as are cutlery skills. (though he tries to cut food with the knife in the left hand). Football is an alien concept.

He doesn't have a dominant foot - his teacher has tried without success in PE to suss this out.

He's a very visual learner, and is really talented at 3D model making whether it be in clay, lego or matchsticks. He "thinks" in 3d images iykim so judging distance etc he's great at.

Our NHS OT was a real disapointment, her report arrived months late and his name wasn't even spelt right. Is it worth going private for a proper assessment or does my description remind anyone of their own child pre therapy (if so which one?)

have a google at bilateral integration & processing disorder.
Not sure how it fits with the 3d images.
What are his planning skills like?

Generally he's marginally less scatty than his mother ( a forget his head if it wasn't screwed on type) but is great at logic and problem solving for his age.

sounds like most 7 yr olds then.

exactly! His ASD traits make it hard for me to assess his planning skills tbh.

ds2 had a full sensory & motor OT assessment to be able to pick out his ASD behaviours from his other stuff.
It really has made sense. Loads of his ASD behaviours & anxiety is due to his lack of ability to independantly plan.

Also does alot of "posturing" so if he is doing something with one hand, the other hand will move/tense.
Same when trying to run, his hands/arms stretch & fingers curl.
Apparently a good sign that the two sides of the brain aren't quite in synch & often found in those with a very late or no hand dominance.
ds2 can catch a ball ok'ish with one hand but not a hope in hell if he tries to catch with both hands.

ds1 is still like this at 10. he writes with his right hand, but eats left handed. he played ice hockey for a couple of years and the coach eventually just told him to get a straight stick as he wasn't dominant with either hand.

is the problem really lack of handedness or just overall poor fine motor and maybe dyspraxia type stuff (not unusual with asd)? what sort of assessment did the ot do? how did he cope? did she recommend ongoing therapy?

you've seen all mrz's fine motor stuff, right?

i've given up stressing about ds's handedness tbh, but he is reasonably dexterous. he has other issues that are more pressing lol.

is he still doing write from the start?

i'd be tempted to push for actual ot therapy, if i'm honest. to maintain the improvement you're already seeing. have you got a specific reason for rrt? (in that you know he has a number of rr?) dd2 does, and it's always been on our list of things to ponder...

DS's left arm being out of action for a couple of days followng Sunday's "incident" has brought the "handedness" stuff to the forefront.

It's only quite recently that his other issues have been under enough control to start researching this. (You have to prioritise one problem at a time and progress that or you'd be buried under the complexities).

I don't have a specific reason for RRT other than witnessing some anecdotal results in other kids but their ishoos aren't close enough to my own son's to be completely convinced it's right for him. I have not a clue how you'd go about identifying if he's got any retained reflexes - would a decent OT be able to identify them?

We done lots of fine motor stuff along the lines of MrsZ's list for years, partly cos DS is like me, a naturally practical "crafty type" so we both find covering the living room in glue/beads/matchsticks/blue thread fun and stress relieving.

Yes he's still doing write from the start - I think it will be near the end of this school year before we finish it. It has definately helped his handwriting no end, but obviously doesn't address the wider issues.

our physio was better at rr than the ot i think, although if you have rrt locally it could well come under ot lol.

it's so tricky to know where to go next, isn't it?

i guess the most importnat thing is to pick something and work towards that, then move on when appropriate. nothing about this stuff is scientific, tbh. there's no 'if x, then y'. it's more like 'if x, then try y or z, or maybe q if that deosn't work. pop back and let me know how it goes, and then maybe we'll try d or e. or maybe w if there's funding.'

great that you have a focus for 2012 though. i must try and get one

Whereabouts are you? We had a private report done by a Pediatric Physio last summer. She gave us so much information and advice. DS1 has bilateral confusion, poor motor planning and sequencing. Information processing difficult. She concluded signs of Developmental Coordination Disorder. Only problem with this report is that school ignore it because it was private. This report is the reason DS1s eye problems have been discovered. Don't regret it one bit!"

Omg are you saying the NHS can assess retained reflexes? Who do I ask?

Bochead great that you have found a focus. I'm always vacilating between behavioral and physiological stuff. Ds also has problems with pragmatic language and motor planning. The two must be mixed up mustn't they? My ds seems to be vaguely left handed for fine motor but holds a tennis racquet in his right hand and kicks with his right foot.
Sorry about the horrible girls BTW.

nhs physio always kept an eye on dd2's rr. or at least identified them, anyway.

i think it probably depends a lot on area. most will be able to identify, but not all areas have therapy available - tends to be private unless you are lucky.

oodlesofdoodles was that ? to me? if so... DS1 was referred by our GP after the NHS Optician had told us what the problem was and where the clinic was. It was out of our area otherwise the optician would have done the referral herself. This was for visual tracking. He's now seen an opthalmologist and got told he has visual stress. so he now needs an overlay to read and school have been asked to change the background colour on the whiteboard. Not sure if that parts happened yet. Meeting with SENCO this week.

Thanks Jerbil and madwoman.

I'm in London but fairly close to the centre so willing to travel if needed for someone decent, (pm me if you don't wanna pop it on the board). It'll have to be private cos I'm just not up to going 10 rounds with the local NHS after the joys of 2011 again quite so soon, though I may feel differently in a month or two. All is quiet on the local PCT front bar a successful SALT programme, (which took me 3 years to win), and for the sake of my own sanity I need to enjoy simply being the Mum of a happy, cheeky chappy for a while.

A trip to an opthalmologist might help me decipher why his 2d and 3d abilities are so different mightn't it? Or should an OT be able to do that? In a standard vision test he has better than 20/20 vision, so I know it's not a simple astigmatism or anything like that.

OT
Physio
Ophthalamist
Random as yet unidentified expert

Which one?

oodlesdoodles - We found the home address of one of DS's attackers - just gotta double check the house number & I'll call it into the community officers. Hopefully they'll get a nice stern talking to soon. DS has recovered well and is back to trying to find out which species of fish don't have muscles in their fins.