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11 year old son - dyspraxia and emotional difficulties

3 replies

SalaciousCrumb · 03/11/2013 15:08

Hi...our ds is often frustrated and angry; the low point a while ago was banging his head. Following a visit to CAMHS it was suggested we get him referred to an OT to see if he has dyspraxia because he cannot ride a bike, tie laces, use scissors very well and says he finds fiddly things difficult.

The OT found he probably has dyspraxia. He is in year 7 and school say he is doing well but his difficulties have been pointed out to them by the OT (we paid privately). Especially difficult for him is copying writing (visual motor speed). We think he can be diagnosed once we've heard from the community paediatrician.

He had retreated very much into a life playing computer games, especially minecraft and skyping his friends - however after complaints from other parents about abusive comments from him and our concerns that it is obsessing him, we've cut down his time. He's fallen out with the group of friends now and decided to stop skyping, but is feeling very wretched abou the whole thing Sad

He gets in a temper and seems to lose all reason; he does understand social boundaries but forgets all about them and cannot see others points of view when he is like this. I have wondered is he may have aspergers but he's not like this all the time. I think he is reacting to change, new routines, etc.

Sorry for long post. Anybody who's read this far, does this sound typical of the emotional difficulties that go alongside dyspraxia?

And do you limit their time on the computer?

OP posts:
Kleinzeit · 03/12/2013 23:04

It does sound as if he has some social and communication difficulties, as well as the temper. Not clear if they would be enough to justify a separate diagnosis of Asperger’s but it would still be worth tackling his social difficulties as a problem in their own right. Can you get him checked out by a speech and language therapist to see if he would benefit from some social and communications skills therapy? CAMHS should be able to refer him.

My DS has Asperger’s and he can say inappropriate or unkind things. Over the years he has had a lot of social/communications skills therapy which does help though he can still get it wrong. We don’t restrict his computer gaming time (so long as everything else is done!) but we were very cautious about giving him access to online communication because he could so easily say the wrong thing. We started him off when he was about 10 or 11 by letting him join an online game which is very tightly moderated (recommended by parents of one of his friends) and with very strict instructions from us about what he could and couldn’t say. Anything out of line and he’d have been chucked off. Now he's 15 and spends a lot of time on games forums but he doesn't chat about general things, only about games.

SalaciousCrumb · 19/12/2013 08:55

Kleinzeit thanks for reply. I did keep checking a while ago but just seen this. Interested to read about the online game introduced when your ds was 10/11, which game was it?

I'm not sure what to do ds seems to have a few traits that seem like AS but they are intermittent; sometimes has meltdowns over games etc, sometimes doesn't. Last night he said he has no mates to ask along to dd's party, but clearly does seem to have friendly acquaintances at school, it will take him a long time to see them as friends and then he can't cope if they offend him, gets dogmatic and says nasty things. He just cannot get past what the other person has done and has no feeling other than anger towards them. Some children are very affable and seem to understand him just hope he meets some!

He completely freaked when we had the OT come to the house to do an assessment for his co-ordination difficulties. I wonder if it's best to forget about a diagnosis as such as just work helping him with social communication.

Hope you have a great Christmas :)

OP posts:
Kleinzeit · 20/12/2013 20:21

The game was Travian

Hope all goes well for your DS, have a good Christmas too Smile

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