Feeling out of my depth with DS.

[orangepudding]

My DS will be six next month. Since he was two I have know that something is not quite right.
He didn't start talking until his second birth and only started putting words together just after his third birthday. I brought it up at his two year check and was told he was fine. I accepted the health visitor assistants view probably because it was easier than accepting the truth.
When DS had his fourth birthday party I noticed how behind his speech was so self refered him to a SALT.

He has been having speech therapy since but until a few week ago hadn't had a proper assessment.
When DS was in reception I kept telling the teachers something was right as he was really struggling with his letter sounds, reading counting and writing. I was dismissed as they said they were only concerned about him settling in socially which thankfully he did.
On starting year 1 his fantastic teacher noticed his difficulties and starting pushing the SENCO for an ed psych visit. In December I had a meeting with the SENCO and she made me feel that DSs difficulties were caused by me doing too much for him such as dressing him (I had to help as he couldn't do it ). I came away feeling really crappy about myself. I asked for another meeting to be set up and had one a few weeks later. In between the meetings the SENCO did some tests on DS and found he scored very well on non verbal and verbal reasoning tests. At the second meeting the SENCO suggested that DS may have dyspraxia and she made an appointment with the ed psych.
I have made an appointment for DS to see an ot next week, I made a private one as the nhs list near me is 12 months according to the SENCO.
DS has a new SALT who is much more proactive and has started assessing DS with a view to get him a statement so she can help him more. She is working closely with the ed psych.
DS is a happy loving boy and I have started to feel like I don't know what is and isn't normal for a child his age anymore. I feel like I don't know how to best help him. I have two older children who have never had any of the issues DS has and I know feel out of my depth and so sad for DS.
Has anyone been in a similar situation or have any advice?

My Dd(10) and I have dyspraxia. Suggest, break tasks down into small steps and only give 2 at a time. With getting dressed lay his clothes out the right way round and in the order to put them on. Allow loads of time for him to get dressed. Look at the dyspraxia foundation website for loads of helpful suggestions. Facebook has lots of helpful groups as well.

My ds has a lot of the traits of dyspraxia.

Another vote here for breaking tasks down into smaller steps. When it came to getting dressed, I used two methods:

1. A visual reminder of each of the steps that ds needed to follow. I had a strip of laminated card with some velcro pieces attached to it. I had pictures of each item of clothing and these were stuck on to the card in the order that ds needed to get them on.

You can get ones like these:

www.theplaydoctors.co.uk/siteimages/schedule.png

www.twinkl.co.uk/image/resource_preview_large/T-C-102-Getting-Dressed-Cards-Boys.jpg

Mine was like the first link. The SALT gave me the symbols. Gradually ds got used to the order of doing things.

2. When helping ds to dress, I would get him to do the last stage of putting the clothing on and gradually add to that. So, for example, if ds needed to wear trousers I would help him to step into them and then pull them nearly all the way up. He would then pull them up a little higher until they were in place.

The next time I would pull them up until they were just above his knees, and he would pull them all the way up. Eventually he was able to pull them all the way up by himself. After that we worked on him learning to step into them etc.

It may be that he is getting overloaded by too many instructions when learning to read, count, etc. Again it can really help if someone breaks the instructions down for him.

The rest of the class may be okay with "Go and get your red books out and then sit down and copy the date into your book." Your ds may need someone to say "Fetch your red book", and then wait for him to sit back down before continuing with "Now pick up your pencil" and then telling him each subsequent step to take.

This link has a much better description of the 'backward chaining' technique for learning how to get dressed (on page 3):

www.hertschs.nhs.uk/Library/Children_Services/Childrens_OT/Childrens%20OT%20Developing%20Dressing%20skills%20December%202011.pdf