Dyspraxia - what extra help should school give my ds?

[Pollyanna]

My ds (aged 6 ) is in year 1 in a state school. I was wondering if any one who has a child with dyspraxia gets extra help in school for their child. Mine desperately needs help with his writing as he is falling behind with this, despite being ahead of his age in reading and numeracy. We would like the school to give him, say, an extra 20 minutes a day, one to one help with his writing.

He also has attention problems and other emotional issues, but I don't really know what help he could get for this.

We thought we might apply for a statement, but have been advised that we won't get one. Does anyone have any experience of this?

Sorry if this is clueless - we have just got the diagnosis and I am not really sure what to do next. (although the diagnosis wasn't a surprise).

Also, and this is jumping the gun rather, if we wanted to change schools, is there an advisory body that could advise us on what would be a good school for helping him (both state and private)?

Thanks.

At the school where I work, there was a boy with dyspraxia in year 2. He didn't have a statement (not sure if his parents tried to get one?) He did however receive 1:1 help with writing/spelling. This is a programme the school runs and there was several other children doing the same programme. Could you speak to the school and see if they could offer your DS anything?

The headmistress has said she will see what she can do. She didn't seem overly optimistic. His class teacher is adamant he needs extra help or he is going to start falling behind.

My DS3 has dyspraxia. He is 16 now and was not diagnosed until he was 9-in those days it was relatively unheard of. However, he did then get help with his writing, with extra tuition away from the class; he was also given a "laptop" to enable him to keep up with the work. (His keyboard skills have always been excellent.) I too was told there was no way he would get a statement as he is in other ways very able-his reading age was way ahead of his chronological age, and his verbal IQ was very high. He has always had problems with maths, but this apparently does not help with getting a statement.

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My ds was dx as dyspraxic at 5 years old. We were told we wouldn't get a statement either, but the SENCO at his primary was very good & he got time from the LSA, a writing triangle thingy (I don't know what they are called) & special pencils with gripper pads on to help with his writing. He found writing hard because he has fine & gross motor co-ordination problems and the effort of writing tired him very quickly. We didn't go down the laptop route because we thought it was important he learned to actually write, and practiced it.

You might have to do the writing practice with him at home- I doubt the school would have time for 20 minutes a day extra 1 to 1.

I would go in and speak to the SENCO. Dyspraxia is recognised now (it wasn't then- my ds is now 17) so they will/should have strategies in place for d/w it.

The other thing we found helpful was cranial osteopathy, esp if he has emotion & other problems as well.

thanks for that link snailspace - we have ordered the programme. (school aren't doing anything atm). I think we will have to do it on our own - we were of course willing to do this, but hoped to have some kind of support from school, which isn't there. I think that I will have to put more pressure on the school as we don't get any extra help from them at all, which I find very depressing.

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