Dyspraxia and APD : What support should school offer?

[artichaut27]

My DS1 is entering YR2 tomorrow and he has been assessed this summer for Dyspraxia and Auditory Processing Disorder.

He is 2nd percentile in movement and his handwriting isn't good. Also OT strongly recommended assessment for SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) for Sensory seeking (fidgeting etc.)

Audiologist says he has Secondary APD.

Both professionals are making recommendations. They both recommend that he is assessed by Ed Psych (not sure the school will pay for it...)

My DS1 main issues academically is his handwriting and organising his ideas on paper. He panics and cries when he has to write a single word.

Will the school have a special extra time for him to practice cursives for example?

Will they spend one-to-one time with him to help him conquer his fear of the blank sheet of paper?

Should he be allowed to bring fidget toys?

Can I request that he sits in the front row for his APD?

What can I reasonably ask for?

What is your experience?

Thanks!

I can tell you what we have in place for my daughter who is 5, going into y1 with a dyspraxia diagnosis.

She's down for our local areas OT backed physical skills programme, handwriting group time, various speech and language interventions (her speech is affected), has a wobble cushion for carpet time, chew jewellery (saves the school pencils a gnawing), is allowed fiddle toys (school know I won't send in anything likely to be a nightmare for teachers), uses a handwriting slope and stationery that's easier for her (although I provided these as a bit of a fair accompli) and they'll look at where she's seated in terms of it meeting her sensory needs. They'll back up anything in terms of therapy programmes as well.

We are very lucky with our school though and I've pushed for and suggested a lot of stuff that's now in place (senco last year wasn't the greatest with DCD). Plus like I say I have done the "ok here's her writing slope for September now where do you want me to leave it for her" smile and run routine a bit!

Do you mean year 2 at secondary school or primary? Either way it is your child's right to be assessed and supported by ed psych ring your education board yourself. Ring the school and tell them what his needs are and the support that must be in place for him. Be firm with both the school and your education board you are his advocate no one else is better placed than you to get him what he needs. The school are very unlikely have anyone to spend 1-2-1 time with him so you will have to get a classroom assistant or hope that one already in the school can be spared. You can reasonably ask for anything you want as long as you are politely firm about it.

This link will let you know your child's legal rights in school. www.disabilityrightsuk.org/adjustments-disabled-students

Have you met the senco and/or class teacher? Take a copy of any reports and recommendations and ask what adjustments can be made and support offered. None of your suggestions seem unreasonable but the school needs to agree to try them and monitor progress, plus they may have had other pupils with similar needs and have other suggestions.

The professionals will all do reports - which tend to take a bloody age to come out (2 months is not far off the going rate round here) and they SHOULD copy the school in on them all with recommendations - but I always make sure that I take them in and pass them onto the school myself to make sure we've all got all the records.

I've found that sometimes just asking outright helps a lot more - so I've gone into school and said "can we try X - it works well at home" or "she copes better if she's got a fiddle toy and it keeps her stiller on the carpet (if you pitch things in a way that makes it clear to the school that it'll make it easier for them they tend to comply much more) - if I send her in with a couple that aren't ones that will send teachers barmy is it OK for her to use them"... and usually if it's reasonable, and easily implementable they just nod and agree perfectly fine. Like I say - often we've resourced things like writing slopes out of our own pocket just to make it easier to get things in place for her - school DO have one, but it just makes it harder to say no.

You need to start meeting with the class teacher and SENCO but none of the stuff you're asking for is stuff that is ridiculous really.

Might be worth seeing if you can get referred on to occupational therapy -they've been brilliant for DD2 - really really practical and in a useful way unlike some of the professionals you tend to get.

Is it worth while just at home trying to let him type any kind of content he wants to generate onto computer? Might just help remove a bit of the idea of a blank sheet of paper being daunting if you can get the penny to drop that way - the idea of it being on the computer and that being all "cool" plus typing removes the handwriting minefield. Writing on a whiteboard is sometimes less daunting as well as it doesn't have that "permanence" idea that paper does (you can always photocopy the whiteboard for a record too). Also recording a sentence at a time before writing it so you can play it back again and again - separate out what's needed to be done because holding the sentence you've just thought of in your head while working your way through it and coordinating yourself to be able to write it all in one go is actually a lot of stuff to do at once (didn't work for DD2 as she just decided recording herself singing was much more fun).

Thank you all so much for your very useful and positive reply. Thanks 5000KallaxHoles all these are great suggestions and ideas.

He’s been discharged from Dyspraxia OT so that I can self refer to SPD OT. The self-referral to SPD OT is designed in such user-unfriendly it’s almost like they don’t want to see you :). And I’ve been through a few professionals already!

The DCD OT is writing her report but I’ll get things moving in the meantime. I need to meet Senco again soon and see if they have a writing slope. DS1 is in a small school in the city we live. Only 23 kids in Year 2 (primary). DS2 started réception today with 18 in his class.

Good thing is they are very attentive and caring, not so good is that they don’t have money. So I doubt they’ll be able to afford cognitive with Ed Psych. I’ll ask for it anyway.

His teacher (who is same as in YR1 and is wonderful) wasn’t surprised with DCD diagnosis and she was completely ok with fidgets. She said they have wobble cushions.

The great news is that his TA who knows him well and is fond of DS1, has a teenage son with DCD who is also very creative (music). So she really «gets him». About APD she said that in YR1 she had to take DS1 out of the class when things got too noisy for him.

I could almost cry I’m so relieved that he has a mother of DCD kid as a TA! That means I won’t have to spell too much out and feel patronising and pushy! I know she will take him under her wing.

I’ve been thinking of a white board at home. It’s good to write big letters and get his shoulder moving. I’m going to start teaching him how to type.

5000KallaxHoles Are you using a specific method/tutorial for DD2?

I’ve looked into dictating to iPad as well. ( not sure how it will work with his lateral lisp though)

Thanks a lot again!

If you have not already,take a look at the Dyspraxia Foundation website for ideas on a activities to support him. As he gets older sport (especially team sport) may become an issue but ds found sailing and climbing fun which are also good for core strength , coordination and body awareness.

Thanks LIZS. I’ve looked at their website on several topics. Team sports might be an issue for his self-esteem, he struggles with balls. He’s a good runner though and quite good on his legs. His DCD seems to affect his upper-body more than lower body. He has good lower core but not upper core which is a strange division of his body.
His younger brother is more ungainly from hip down and I need to keep an eye on him. He’s not good at hopping for example.
It’s because my DS1 was quite agile running that DCD was not under my radar. I thought he was dysgraphic only. Then teacher started talking about gross motor skills and balance issues at PE. Thanks goodness she did. His previous school made no mention of it!

www.amazon.co.uk/Write-start-Programme-Perceptual-Handwriting/dp/1855032457?tag=mumsnetforum-21 I'm working through this with DD2 gradually - it gets a bit monotonous at times, but it's not overt "handwriting" - it's lots of the perceptual and motor skills work - doing things like bumps between notches, picking out the shape that's in the front of a set of them, straight lines following a path etc at the moment - so she thinks it's cool because it's like join the dots and the like... and I bribe her with stickers. We do a page a day when I remember and then also I was writing a sentence for her to copy each day during the holidays just reinforcing letter formation (she's got a few letters she forms incorrectly which are going to cause problems when school start teaching cursive that I'm trying to gently address) and spacing between words/the fact you can't just continue up the edge of the paper or across the table when you run out of room.

There's an app for iPad and Android (think the iPad app is much better as it was the first one that came out) called SnapType (there's a free or Pro paid one) that you can basically photograph a worksheet and then tap anywhere on there to type a response... long term I want to get things set up so she can use technology like that in school - but at the moment she's a bit young and needs to get a bit more confident with handwriting anyway as she does at least need to be able to fill in forms and write shopping lists and the like in adult life so it's balancing it out.

We couldn't really get anywhere with voice recognition as her speech is also affected by her dyspraxia - had an old school friend who works with a dyslexia support project trying to think of a solution and we couldn't really work around it as of yet. There is a voice recognition option hidden away free in Windows www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-set-up-speech-to-text-in-windows-10/ if you want to play about with that kind of option for free and see if it works.

I'm a primary teacher myself (just getting back into it via supply after a few years out) so I've got a fair feeling for how to pose requests so they're likely to be agreed to and make them manageable within the classroom.

OT has also had us doing lots and lots of things like playing with clothes pegs, trying to turn them around and rotate them in one hand to build up hand strength and dexterity, building towers of blocks with one hand while on hands and knees to work on core and shoulder strength (when we started doing this DD2 would try desperately to pull her knees up under her - she couldn't keep herself in the position at all for any length of time), pulling herself around on the floor lying on a skateboard and things. DD2 loved the local clip and climb place recently if you've got one of those near you (they're kind of like some kind of hideous climbing wall and soft play hybrid) - again - wonders for her shoulder and core strength.

She does Karate (badly but she loves it) and the difference in how she can cope with some of the warm up exercises since we started doing all the exercises OT recommended is amazing!

Oh and OT also recommended a lap weight to try to help her sit on a chair without falling off every 10 seconds - one of the snake/wrap type ones rather than a lap pad type one which just tend to slide off. It's horribly expensive - but this is the one they were using in the sessions and it kept DD2 sat still, in one place, not falling off onto the floor, or on her knees dangling across towards the table, or upside down or any of her other usual seating positions of choice for a good 20 minutes! www.southpaw.co.uk/weighted-puppy-hugs-wraps-1316-p.asp (the dog's out of stock till November - but we got the kitty for home instead... it'll end up drifting into school but I didn't load that one onto the class teacher on the first day back). Going to get my mum to copy the shape and make one for home and one for when it invariably gets lost!

We went through loads of different pencil types as well (the Fantastic Dyspraxic shop do packs to try out different ones www.fantasticdyspraxic.co.uk/product-category/ergonomic-pen-and-pencil-packs-for-dyspraxic-children-teenagers-and-adults/ ) but DD2 was adamant that she likes the Faber Castell "Grip" ones better than anything else (I think she likes the bobbles on them for tactile feedback) so I've made sure she has those in school to use (although she's rather fond of the fab dinosaur pencil grips they also sell but that's just because they've got dinosaurs on them if we're honest). I've made sure we've got things like a ruler with a handle for her as well just to make life easier (and it's a crocodile handle so again it's really really cool) and also oodles of non slip matting to put under plates, cups and everything really.

The entire system is designed basically to piss you off so much you go away and figure it all out yourself! I sussed that one out last year - thankfully our Reception teacher was bloody amazing and was prepared to launch absolute barrages of paperwork where required. I've also got quite obsessively "in" to it all (SEN training when I did my PGCE was bloody non existent - what I know I've picked up myself or actively sought out the information and experience - or quite often just the application of some bloody common sense) and found things like sensory processing really really quite fascinating so can disappear down internet rabbit holes for hours researching it all.

Thanks so much 5000KallaxHoles. This is invaluable information!

We found a lovely tutor who helps with dyspraxia through Patoss, she uses Pindora's Box. I've also bought workbooks for cursives and we try a little bit at a time.

I've met the Senco briefly this morning in the playground and she found a wobble cushion and a slope that they had lying around. We're now waiting for the OT report.

You're right, about the SEN being fascinating. I've been reading about learning difficulty for a year now, and I've only discovered the SPD aspect recently thanks to the OT.

I still have a lot of reading to do now that the boys are at school. Which I'm weirdly looking forward to.

One thing I have starting doing at home is home-made flashcards, with one DCD activity each, i.e. “play with balloon’, “write a big letter on A3 page” etc. Next to the flashcard box, I have a box with balloons, soft balls, fidgets, beanbag etc. So hopefully we will do one a day and keep varied and fun.

Next year, I’m planning to take Yoga Teacher Training for Special Needs Kids (esp. Dyspraxia) yoga. There are no kids yoga classes around where we live and certainly no SN ones!

specialyoga.org.uk/blog/yoga-dyslexia-dyspraxia/

Many thanks again!

Oh, and have you tried Tree Fu Tom with DD2? www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/games/tree-fu-tom-magic-dash

I've tried to get my DD1 to watch it, as it's made for DCD kids, but he's not impressed by the graphics!
They also have the show on Cbeebies radio/and podcast.