Awaiting Dyspraxia assessment /applying for University

[WaxOnFeckOff]

Not sure if i'm in the right place but hoping someone can help/point me in the right direction.

My DS is 17, after getting a bit of a runaround from school, we've ended up at the GP to see if he can be assessed for Dyspraxia. We should have been at this point years ago to be honest but we are where we are.

The reason for pursuing this now is that DS is currently applying for University. He has under-performed in his exams and additionally will need some extra support if/when he goes. GP is unsure how long this will take as he isn't really sure where in the system he needs to go as he is too old for child services and too young for adult. He's agreed that he fits the criteria for referral though.

Anyway, clearly he won't have a diagnosis before his UCAS form needs to be in (or probably not even before he goes to Uni if he gets in), so what should we put on the form and where should this go?

We'd be happy to pay for a private diagnosis but not really sure how to go about that either. DS went in to see GP himself, so a lot of questions went unasked.

Can anyone help please?

He does not need it before the ucas form goes in . Iirc there is a box you can tick re. Additional support which then triggers Student Finance to request further information and reports for DSA once the offers are accepted in May. A Needs Assessment to identify what support is appropriate can be done either before a university course starts or once at university through their Disability Support office. What he needs most urgently is a post 16 assessment to formalise any exam access arrangements (JCQ deadline is during next term) and to submit to SF in due course.

Thanks LIZS, I have no idea what that is or where to go for that. He currently is allowed to type his exams (we are in Scotland so it's the SQA) but that's the only support he has ever been given. His handwriting is the level of about a 6/7 year old. I'm not worried about extra finance or anything, we will support anything he needs, but he does need some help with anxiety, memory and organising himself and he will need to type everything.

Learning support at uni can be mentoring etc as well as practical such as dictation software.

Mentoring would be good, he has been really down at times but we've managed to get his mood stabilised and positive but he's really concerned that he wont get any offers as when he did his Highers last year he was still in a funk and disappointed at the under-performance in his Nat5s. he didn't cope well with having too many subjects at the same time and has specific difficulty with Maths and Science though is good with his favourite subjects (Politics, Modern Studies, History and English) . He doesn't have enough at the moment for an unconditional offer (he has ABC) but is hopeful of meeting the requirements of a conditional offer if he were to get one. He is doing another two Highers and an Advanced Higher and should get close to As or certainly a mix of A/Bs. Our problem is that he needs to show that he does have the ability to cope with the course and explain his under-performance across the board so that he gets an offer he can meet. If the say "no" outright then getting As and Bs isn't going to help.

So, would it be worth contacting the Unis he is applying to? One is local to us and the other is further away. he refused to go and speak with admissions staff at either. There is a third in the mix that he will apply to but their requirements are the same as the other two.

But at this stage there is little room for influencing whether he gets an offer by trying to explain his underperformance. May be school reference could allude to it but unis tend to rely more on predicted grades

Yes their disability office could advise but they do not influence admissions. In some cases they may be able to assist with assessments.

Thanks LIZS, I have parents night at school next week so will try to find out what predicted grades they are intending putting down for him. The school are really terrible in terms of support. They have a top academic record and a fairly affluent catchment so expect parents to really do everything. His HOY told us that she would doubt he had dyspraxia because he could play the guitar. He had to wear velcro shoes until he was 14 and still can't spread a slice of bread without ripping a hole in it and his English teacher tells you she doesn't even know whether his paper is right way up or upside down as his writing is so poor, but okay then...

dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Adult-diagnosis-factsheet-final-august-20151.pdf

www.nhs.uk/conditions/developmental-coordination-disorder-dyspraxia-in-adults/

Private - I couldn't find which areas these people cover but it may help you www.dyspraxiauk.com/findaspecialist.php

My son got his dyspraxia diagnosis at 13 because I took him to a private OT assessment, (there should be a list of private OTs in your area) and then it had to be rubber stamped by a paediatrician/consultant medical doctor to check there was no underlying neurological problem in the sense of malnutrition/blood pressure/tumour/illness that made him perform in the tests the way he had. Then he was given a diagnosis of DCD. He still had to take an assessment before the exams, given by the school to gain exam concessions, in his case an extra 15 percent time. His handwriting was not that slow but it got slower if he had to write for long periods. The real issue was the organisation of ideas, which made him a bit slower, and some parents have told me what their children needed was the rest breaks, 5 or 10 minutes where their child was allowed to stop and move around before continuing to write. {exam obviously done in room away from others] That in England is possible without any specific assessment from school, if you have a medical diagnosis. But obviously that didn't mean you had longer to write the actual essays.
This was a year ago. Ds still didn't do that well, but certainly better than he might have done without the extra time, he said he hardly had enough time to finish as it was. He had no concessions at GSCE, through his own obstinacy, and I'm afraid he dropped a grade below in some subjects due to this, although he passed all, which is why we inisisted school assess him properly for the A levels, although he said he didn;t need help.

My second son has ASD and dyspraxia and the school has assessed him as lower than 18 words per minute which means he qualifies for a scribe in his exams (being able to scribe your exams is obviously an art that is best practised over a long period though, he has been doing it for years now) AND extra time. He did very well in his Gsces. His handwriting is still pretty poorly formed and he scores in the lowest centile for dexterity on an OT assessment. He types. But not fast enough for exams, and it is not his style of working for exams.

sorry, I see this is an old thread, hope you found some solutions OP

There's three options - I have an additional need, I don't have, or I want to give information later directly to the university. Dd chose the last. They have been brilliant, gave her a small bursary and tried to get dsa though as I knew she didn't qualify as she doesn't need that kind of support. She's living at home as that's a lot easier for her

Thanks everyone, I only came across your replies by accident and obviously a bit of time has passed. A little update for anyone who picks this up at anytime :). I spoke to his teachers at parents night and found out that he'd been crying and upset at school and hadn't been engaging with his UCAS support person. His pastoral care teacher had stepped in and was supporting his form instead and was making better progress with him. She recommended putting down that he had dyspraxia even though we didn't have a diagnosis. On the Uni side, he got rejected from 3 Unis (one with 2 courses) and got a conditional offer (an achievable one at that) from the one with usually the highest entry requirements! It was his favourite choice too, hopefully he is going to meet those requirements and he'll be moving away in September! gulp!

On the Dyspraxia DCD side, he went through various assessments with Occupational therapy who concluded that, as well as hypermobile joints, some of his mobility scores were as low as 2/100. he got a referral to Paediatrics and they've said there is no other reason for his issues so have concluded that a diagnosis of DCD is appropriate. We are just waiting on the official report and then will speak to his intended uni.

Thanks to all who posted and helped. Additionally his mood is vastly improved and he doesn't blame himself so much (my guilt is another matter!). He is keeping his fingers tightly crossed for results day.

Just to let you know, DS finally got a diagnoses of ASD, Dyspraxia /DCD plus a few other things last year. Prior to that he struggled through mainstream school with no help.
He got his results today, (AAC, C might get upgraded to a B after remarking)
and is off to his first choice of Uni in five weeks time :)
Wishing your DS the very best for the future