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    Joined: May 2009
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    Originally Posted by polarbear
    Originally Posted by ColinsMum
    You've had some great advice, but I have the feeling that much of it is from people whose children have bigger challenges than yours. I want to ask: what's stopping you assuming it's just asynchronous development? You say at the start that his writing is ahead, although not as ahead as his other skills; so, while it's good to make sure he doesn't get held back unnecessarily, in what sense does he have a fine motor disability? I'm not understanding.

    Cricket, metis mentioned other areas that were showing as fine motor delays (difficulty with buttons/zippers etc), and I think metis mentioned a low score on the Beery VMI - this is a visual motor integration test used by neuropsychologist that is impacted by fine motor challenges. It is possible to have DCD (fine motor disability) and still score ahead of average on the tests metis has mentioned and still be ahead of the game...
    To be clear, this wasn't me you were addressing this to I believe. I, too, have a child with a dysgraphia & dyspraxia dx who is performing well above grade level and who is grade accelerated b/c she is HG+ and compensates well. When you look at how fast she performs in comparison to what she can do, though, there is a huge discrepancy that didn't work itself out over time on its own. Well, that and two OT exams have confirmed the diagnoses.

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    metis Offline OP
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    ColinsMum,

    My son plays piano. It's likely that has helped as well.

    I'm curious...was your son 2 standard deviations below what was age-appropriate on all tasks requiring fine motor skills? Or was it just writing? And was it always near age-appropriate? That's the difference between a child with a relative weakness and a disability.

    If I had ignored the problem, my son would no doubt qualify in full for an IEP and be significantly behind. Early intervention works. My son has had almost 3 years of the best therapy for this condition, and it's made a difference. He was caught by the state and is officially considered disabled.

    That said, one still hopes it's asynchronous development, but 3 years of intensive therapy in a child without a disability would have made a greater difference, right? My son is heavily scaffolded to reach that 61%. Do you have to do the same for your son? Did it require any scaffolding to keep him age-appropriate?

    This is what makes it impossible for me to assume it is just asynchronous development, although I still hope. I could stop therapy to experiment, but at what cost?

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    metis Offline OP
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    polarbear,

    He is currently in Kindergarten and will be moving to first grade next year. We don't have a 504, because we are at a private school. I was thinking of waiting until he was 6, to see if there has been any improvement, before settling on the diagnosis and getting the 504.

    The grade-skip has helped in some ways because it keeps my son motivated to work harder to keep up. What is scribing?

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    Originally Posted by metis
    I'm curious...was your son 2 standard deviations below what was age-appropriate on all tasks requiring fine motor skills? Or was it just writing? And was it always near age-appropriate? That's the difference between a child with a relative weakness and a disability.
    I'm sorry if I've offended you. Until now you had said that your son's writing is now ahead of his age, but you hadn't said that he had ever been very behind, nor that he has been having therapy for years. That's why I was confused.

    Mine had trouble with all fine motor skills, yes. As best I remember, couldn't do his own buttons or zips when he turned 4, could just about manage chunky ones when he turned 5. Could just about do his own socks if you insisted and didn't mind waiting. Don't know how behind he was as he was never formally evaluated, just supported. I wonder now whether we were too relaxed, but we and his teachers just assumed he'd get there eventually. He has had specialist help with handwriting, which has helped so much that he doesn't need it this year.


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    Originally Posted by Cricket2
    To be clear, this wasn't me you were addressing this to I believe.

    I'm so sorry Cricket2! You're right, I was replying to Colinsmom's post - my brain clearly blipped on the names. I type faster than I think most of the time - sorry for the confusion!

    polarbear

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    Originally Posted by metis
    We don't have a 504, because we are at a private school. I was thinking of waiting until he was 6, to see if there has been any improvement, before settling on the diagnosis and getting the 504.

    Our ds is at a private school now too, so we're flying without IEP/504 at the moment, and it's working well - the key, whatever the type of school, isn't the document so much as having a staff that is willing to allow your child to have what they need to be successful, and it sounds like you have that at your school - so really, from my perspective, as long as things are going ok at school and you aren't having to fight for things you feel your ds needs, the 504 can wait.

    Quote
    The grade-skip has helped in some ways because it keeps my son motivated to work harder to keep up.

    It's probably also keeping him engaged intellectually - we chose not to skip, and while I think it was the right choice for our ds, he did go through years of being bored in elementary school, and he didn't really start to fly and enjoy school until he was accelerated in middle school.

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    What is scribing?

    Scribing is when a person (teacher, aide, parent at home during homework) writes down the answers for a child rather than the child having to use handwriting to write. I did this with ds' teachers ok for several years in elementary on homework, and I still do it sometimes even now in middle school when he's doing the initial composition when writing essays and reports. He switched over to typing at school starting in 3rd grade, and everything he turns in now is expected to be typed, but even typing is a fine motor activity, and my ds is not a fast typist (he types faster than he writes, but it's still slower than most kids his age type).

    Another accommodation ds had in elementary school was oral response to fluency tests (timed tests). The only "fluency" tests ds had were math facts tests - but we were locked in a battle with his school for the longest time trying to get them to see that he *knew* his math facts, he just was never going to be able to write them quickly.

    polarbear

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    metis Offline OP
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    Colinsmum,
    Not offended at all. You had good points, and your post gave me hope. smile

    polarbear,
    We had to grade-skip. Preschool was a disaster. Grade-skipping a boy, especially a boy with fine-motor problems, is a tricky thing at best. If we could have stayed with his age-peers and received academic accommodation, we would have.

    I love all your ideas. A lot of Kindergarten is writing, but they aren't expected to do paragraphs yet, so I'll have to keep your suggestions in mind for next year. His teacher is convinced that he will overcome this, and she is putting in effort to that end.

    My son is learning the value of hard work, and the importance of judging yourself based on progress, not perfection. Good lessons.

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    metis Offline OP
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    For anyone that comes across this post and has a child with similar weaknesses, I thought it would be helpful for me to update to give others hope.

    My son's fine motor skills, after years of being significantly delayed and needing regular therapy, have suddenly completely caught up and become above-average with no further need for therapy. It was always asynchronous development (as we hoped), but he still needed help to get through it.

    Also, I found out that he was given two processing tests during his IQ testing, one reliant on fine motor skills and the other not. His FSIQ can also be calculated with the alternate processing score and if so he meets Davidson's criteria for admission. Further testing done by his school (cogAT) has given similar results. He has met local Davidson Young Scholars (instant bonding) and we have been advised by their parents to apply so it's something we plan to do in the future when life is a little less busy.

    Now that his fine motor skills are above-average, he has absolutely no problem with his grade-skip, other than that it's not enough anymore, and an additional grade-skip has been suggested to us by school officials.

    So, if anyone has a child that also tested as disabled by their state and needed years of therapy, there is hope, because sometimes asynchronous development looks like this. smile

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    That is wonderful news metis and always great to see positive outcomes.

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