Dyspraxia - come and share your wisdom

[lougle]

DD2's paed mentioned it as a possibilty. She is 5.

I'm a bit confused, because I've looked at the dyspraxia foundation site, and while some of it resonates, other bits don't at all.

She is physically clumsy and slow (much less able than my 3 year old), slow processing speed, S&L issues (we think), social interaction issues.

But, she can use cutlery, can ride her bike (slower than DD1 who has gross motor delays and slower than 3 year old DD3), do up a zip (just), do buttons.

Lougle I think it's a spectrum, just like asd. Ds has severe dyspraxia, not picked by NHS at all, but by Brainwave. Every child can manifest differently, they did lots of tests and observations; for example his fine motor are almost at appropriate level, his weakest point is gross motor and motor planning, plus balance issues. He sits typically in 'w', which we fix now. His motor planning is executive type, meaning he has the idea but cannot coordinate himself well enough to action the movement...Good OT with SI training would be the best to assess your DD.
I'm waiting for the report from Brainwave to arrive and then I will ask ds paeditrician to refer us somewhere for second opinion, to have dyspraxia confirmed on the NHS as well.

Lougle, I agree with babiki, there is a range of severity.
To be exact, Dyspraxia is difficulty with the ideation, planning and execution of movement.
Typically, the chid will develop 'splinter skills'. That is, they can have some skills (e.g. using cutlery) that stick out from their overall profile.
Often, they will have associated problems with planning and execution of daily living tasks. Visual schedules often help.
Uusually, the Paedx would refer to the OT and poss a Psychologist for assessment and advice. What was your Paed's advice?

He felt that OT was the starting point. He said that what I'd described pointed in parts to aspergers (but he thought she had too much insight, despite poor theory of mind) and in part to dyspraxia. He found her to be quite passive (she is) and said she had some attention and processing issues.

He said we may find that she has sub-diagnostic features of more than one condition, so we may have 'cherry-pick' methods that we find will work. He suggested 'the out-of-sync child'.

He's referring to OT, audiology (to double check that she is actually hearing correctly, although she passed the school entry check) and SALT (because I emailed and said that although he isn't concerned, we are and we realise she didn't actually say anything when he saw her).

He'll copy his letter into the school, who currently assure me there is nothing wrong at all, and see us in 6 months.

Lougle AFAIK theory of mind is not fuly developed til 6 in NT child (happy to be corrected is I am wrong; that was from our ASD SALT).

Dyspraxia does co-exist with a lot of other things.

I hope school are more receptive now that you have a piece of paper .

Yes, it was him who commented that he thought her theory if mind wasn't very good, but he said that it doesn't necessarily mean ASD.

I think it will be a few weeks before the letter reaches them.

I did this course with the SaLT. It seemed to me that there was a lot about the stages of developing social skills, play skills. And how I can help DS to learn these skills....a bit like OT for weak hand muscles IYSWIM.
The book is on Amazon.

There is a common misconception with dyspraxia (mainly in education ) that dyspraxia has physical manifestations only.
DS1s paed calls dyspraxia a continuum. Each feature of dyspraxia can fall anywhere along this continuum. Some physical skills - such as cycling and swimming may not appear to be far onto the dyspraxia continuum. Working memory may be at the opposite end.
Comorbidity with other dx are high too. For example, look at the dyslexia website, and you'll see many of the dyspraxic traits duplicated, also ADD etc
SIPT from OT is good for identifying the major areas of concern with dyspraxia.

My son is classed as gifted and talented in sports, however, he cannot use an knife and fork, cannot tie his shoe laces, cannot do his buttons and gets really frustrated if doing something intricate (fine motor skills needed) at school.

He is really disorganised at school and at home as well.

I also agree that there is a great spectrum with dyspraxia, so I wouldn't look at the foundation site and think he doesn't have it because of x, y or z.

Like the dyspraxia conntect site on facebook as they often post interesting articles and real life experiences that help a lot.

Thanks for that porridgelover.

She's so plausible, but for instance, yesterday we were in IKEA and a small boy was using makaton. I said 'Oooh DD1, this boy signs like you!'

Today, every time DD2 sees someone signing on Something special, she says 'ooh mummy, that boy signs like DD2'. Same tone as I used yesterday, same phrase but adapted. It's just odd.

Oh I get the 'oddness' lougle.
DD1 (about whom I have grave concerns) is similar. I hear my 'echo' if she's not sure what to say...but it's not appropriate to the situation.

I hope you have an answer, although IME, professionals are slow to draw conclusions when a child is not 'obvious'. It takes time, and can be frustrating. Good luck.

Hi Lougle, I've read a few of your posts about your dd and keep meaning to reply - not with anything helpful to say, I'm afraid, but just to say that she sounds in many ways very like my ds. I think they're a similar age too (ds is nearly 5 and a half).

He doesn't socialise normally (doesn't really have friends, happy to play alone - although this is improving slightly), has some odd language quirks, has become more and more prone to meltdowns, but school tell us that they see nothing wrong and clearly think I am a neurotic mother.

We had a second paed appointment in October and the paed said that, while there were some autistic traits, she didn't feel there was enough to diagnose. She also raised the possibility of dyspraxia - as you say, this seems to fit in many ways but not others (he can ride a bike but only recently learned to hop and struggles with buttons and handwriting, for example) .

We were referred to OT but were told that the waiting list was two years As if that wasn't bad enough, we've just received a letter to say that - due to current staff vacancies (not cuts - vacancies )- he doesn't meet their current criteria. So... we are considering private OT at the moment.

I just wanted to say hi, really, and to keep in touch about your progress with your dd. I'd be really interested to hear how you get on.

On the subject of dyspraxia, does anyone know the extent to which it tends to affect a child's ability to do the block design test (a major part of the performance IQ test)?

Disclaimer: I am not a Psychologist.
AFAIK, it can have a major impact as difficulties with visual-spatial perception and visual-spatial manipulation would be features of Dyspraxia and are necessary skills for the block-design test.

One of the key indicators for a diagnosis of Dypsraxia is an average IQ but with significantly higher verbal IQ than performance IQ on the subtests.

Thank you SI much, all these posts are so useful, even if it is just saying 'I recognize that...' because right now all we have is a school who say no problem and a Paed who says well there's something but don't know what.

DS has dyspraxia - so does my nephew, and they are so different. I think each child with dyspraxia will "look" different.
The best book I have read on dyspraxia - coming from an odd angle, but it really explains what you see is "making inclusion work for children with dyspraxia" by Gill Dixon and Loius addy

Have you also found gill dixon's website - it has some good info on it
www.dyspraxiainfo.co.uk

My son - before his diagnosis (and I think sometimes still because people just think dyspraxia is about being clumsy) thought he had ASD - and I went through phases that I really wanted to persuade myself it was, so I had a reason for his behaviour - but ASD never really "fitted", now I understand Dyspraxia better, I really do see it, and understand why, which helps.

everyname is taken - DS has fine motor dyspraxia - his gross motor is actually above average....until he has to plan several movements in sequence....I think that is why I and so many others didn't see it - he seems a very physically capable boy, running jumping etc, but, when he got to something where he had too sequence things he would fall apart- we thought he was just being exceedingly naughty. For example swimming lessons, particularly freestyle. Could do arms on own, could do legs with a flutter board, but ask him to put it together, and he would swin to the bottom of the pool, or jump out and dive bomb back in....he couldn't actually do it, and his response to that was avoidance.

I feel so bad now, because he would get in terrible trouble for not trying :-(