Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional What to Address First?

You can capitalize on his interest in karate and add a visual-spatial component by target practicing with him at home using focus mitts and kicking shields. As his ability to hit a fixed target improves, you can start moving the pads around thus enhancing the challenge.

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Another indoor idea is to hang a light ball (tennis) from an adjustable string attached to the ceiling for a variety of activities - throwing, swinging, orbiting, batting, kicking, jumping to reach, etc.

Emerald City, finding out your child has challenges and gifts all rolled into one can be overwhelming. My first piece of advice is to take a deep breath and realize, you won't be able to solve it all at once, but that's ok. It *will* work out and everything will be ok. It's going to take time, and it will take a lot of work. When you see a clear path to go, head there - but when you're looking at 1800 different things to do and not sure which to do first, just pick what feels right (gut feeling) and move forward. The thing that you will find, no matter which direction you choose to move in, is that you'll change course a few times along the way - and that's ok too.

Here are a few suggestions for you, based on our experience with DCD and written expression disorder:

1) For the gross motor, swinging is great. We live in a cold climate, and my first thought re winter was nordic skiing - it's been a great help for my dd who had low core muscle tone when she was young. Snow shoveling too One sport our kids do that isn't hugely expensive (here) is rock climbing - that also might help with core strength, and it can be a lot of fun for some kids

2) Since your ds has DCD, does he have any struggles with ball sports (throwing, catching, kicking)? I only ask because this has always been tough for my ds. I wish, in hindsight, I'd spent more time playing ball with him just one-on-one when he was younger - he'll do it now but wouldn't then because it was tough and he didn't like it, but I think it would have helped a little bit with core strength plus helped him not feel so awkward in PE.

3) Re writing - I'd start him typing asap.

4) For getting his thoughts on paper, you might try graphic organizers - there are tons online that you can find via googling. Another thing to try is software - Inspiration allows you to map out your writing (sorta like a graphic organizer or flowchart), and then will convert it to outline form automatically which can then be exported to word processing software. That's a bit ahead of where your ds might be right now, but there's also a children's version of Inspiration called Kidspiration. My kids never used it, so I'm not as familiar with it, but when we were first starting out both were available for free trial periods.

5) Re gifted, I wouldn't panic if it has to take a backseat for now while you try to accommdate/remediate his 2nd e. If you *can* get gifted services/differentiation through school now, go for it! But if you can't, try not to over-worry about it. Focus on the 2nd e for school and for the $ you have to put into therapy etc, and just continue to challenge him intellectually at home. Once you have the foundation in place that the therapies etc you choose to do now to remediate what you can due to DCD etc, then you'll find that once your ds is a few years down the road at school, when more gifted options are available, he'll be ready to fly

Hope that makes sense - it's late here lol!

Best wishes,

polarbear

We tried gymnastics for my son with hypotonia from about 6-9 years old. It was great. It was fun. It helped a lot, But my son could not figure out the forward roll. Also strength-wise he plateaued. The gym said in order for my boys to make any more progress we had to start coming more days a week. We could barely afford what we were doing and we still couldn't get my son to figure out the forward roll.

We took a break for the summer and spent that in swim lessons. Half way through the summer he tried out for swim team and the rest is history. Four years later you would never know he has hypotonia now....his fingers, mouth and feet seem to be the most affected at this point.

I am not thinking that the hypononia disappeared in the other areas of his body but all those muscles are so strong now that he is able to compensate. And he can do a flip turn in the water and a forward roll on land.

Given your cost concerns, it seems to me that the most effective interventions would be those that he can do at home, with some outside activities added as a supplement. So, karate once a week can be more than sufficient, so long as he has an outlet for that at home that he does regularly. A punching bag, a parent to spar with, a hanging ball target, etc. For my DD, gymnastics was the activity, and we bought some foam "puzzle pieces" to place on the floor in her play room. She does this practically every day now, but the financial commitment has never been more than two lessons a week (usually just one), and we shut it down seasonally.

Ball sports can be a good way to work on several of those areas of concern all at the same time, so that simplifies things greatly: gross motor, sensorimotor, core strength, visual-spatial, and coping. That's something that anyone can play with your DS, at home or at school, apart from any formal participation. We find that of all the options available, DD's soccer league provides the best value for the dollar.

We have done simple sled pushing exercises with rectangular laundry baskets. We pretend we are shunting freight cars or pushing river barges. We put stuff in the baskets to add weight and make it more interesting. It is a great full body exercise (including core) that builds useful athletic strength.