I have felt for a long time that DS (7) has mild dyspraxia. We had him assessed privately my an OT in the summer who looked mainly at his fine motor control. She found problems with -
- Hypermobility
- Low muscle tone
- Assessed his fine motor control at age 5.6
I then asked our GP for a full assessment witch was done in September at a movement and development clinic. The OT there said that he was not bad enough for a diagnosis of dyspraxia, but they would send an OT into school as a one-off to set exercises for DS.
Her reasons for him not being bad enough were -
- He can catch a ball (we have invested a lot of time in this and his tennis teacher spent many hours helping too)
- He can ride a bike (again this took a lot of time, but he was able to ride by 5.6)
- He could thread beads quickly after an initial practice
- Walked at 14 months
This was backed up by the community Paediatrician, although she did have concerns over some birth marks DS had and sent us to a neurologist.
The neurologist was pretty certain that DS does not have a genetic condition, however she did disagree to an extent over the dyspraxia diagnosis and said - "His gait was normal on walking and running, however when I did do walking on the heels, on inverted and enervated feet, one could see reflective posturing in the upper limbs, which by now DS should have grown out of and would be in keeping with the dyspraxic phenotype"
So we are now in a position where we have been discharged by the community Paediatrician, the OT (who said DS must learn to type) and the neurologist and I'm feeling rather lost.
DS is getting very emotional and is having major tantrums over very minor things such as "put your shoes and coats on" "please brush your teeth" etc
I really want to help DS, but he is wearing me down as we have had at least 30 minutes every morning before school this week. He is also being particularly horrible with his younger brothers.
Any advice on how to deal with this aspect would be really appreciated. (Also do any of you know of a good "learn to type" package).