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    Joined: Oct 2014
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    Lepa Offline OP
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    So I've posted on here many times, trying to put my finger on what, exactly, is going on with my son. He is almost seven years old. His younger brother just turned four and I see how easy things are for him and it has really put into focus how much my older son struggles with some things. I'd like to provide a list of things that I am observing and see if any of this looks familiar to you. I'm trying to figure out what we are looking for and what kind of tests/doctor we should consult to help us figure out what is going on.


    - My son is an introvert. He has some social skills challenges and participated in a class for social skills from the age of 4-5. He has a hard time making eye contact and often looks in another direction when people speak to him. The psychologist who worked with him said that she did not recommend testing for ASD. She said he's just a quirky, brainy introvert.
    - He is really slow. Over the last year he has begun to talk very slowly. He moves very slowly when getting dressed. He pauses for so long during stories that we completely lose interest. His processing score was exactly 100, which was more than forty points lower than his VCI and almost forty points below his FSIQ (he took the WPPSI when he was almost five). The administering psych wasn't so concerned about the processing speed and said that he is careful and meticulous. She also thought his fine motor skills contributed to the slow speed. I'm mentioning it, nevertheless, because it may be relevant.
    - Over the last year, I've noticed that my son experiences more difficulty with staying on task. He constantly gets distracted by things when in the middle of a task. For example, when we are rushing to get out of the door in the morning, he will stand in the bathroom and make silly faces in the mirror or stand and examine a flashlight very carefully. When I ask him why, he says, "Oh, you know me, I live in my head." His teachers have reported that he responds to redirection and he's mostly focused in school. During his WPPSI, the administrator reported that he is "extremely focused" but this is not what I see at home unless he is engaged with reading or playing. When reading or engaged in something, he really does have extraordinary focus.
    - He often doesn't hear what I say to him. He asks me to repeat myself. I do not believe he has a hearing issue, as the doctor has checked his hearing.
    - He had an excellent working memory when tested and remembers facts but struggles to remember what I just said or what he did all day (maybe this is part of being 6?)
    - He struggles with handwriting. It is slow and laborious. He doesn't seem to have developed automaticity. It's not neat but not really messy, either. He mostly writes in capital letters and struggles with incorporating small letters. He has a much harder time copying text than just writing from memory. He has a very hard time reducing his thoughts to writing. I've asked his teachers and they always agree that he struggles with writing compared to other areas at school (he excels in math and reading) but they believe his writing is age appropriate. His first grade teacher did note that because writing is so difficult for him, he oversimplifies his ideas when recording him. She also recommended against accelerating him to the next grade for math because she didn't think he could keep up with the writing requirements. She has noted that he strongly prefers mental math to writing anything down. When he is not at school, he avoids writing and draws very little.
    - His drawing is simplistic and not a favorite activity. He used utensils early and can do Legos and use tools fine. His hand is weak and he seems to have trouble maintaining appropriate pressure when we hold hands to cross the street (he lets his hand go limp). He finds buttoning shirts difficult.
    -He's not clumsy but he's not athletic, either. He's very physically cautious. He walked on the later side (15 months) but he's really tall (99th %) so his doctor wasn't particularly worried. He can ride a bike. My husband and I were never interested in or good at sports so we never worried about this.
    - He has some verbal and motor tics. The verbal tics really started over the last year and are currently largely absent. We are keeping an eye on it and he does not have a diagnosis.
    - He still cannot say the "r" sound properly. A speech therapist I know said we shouldn't worry yet but I'm just mentioning it in case it is relevant.

    After reading the other thread about DCD, that made me wonder if my son has that. I read a bit about it but the clumsiness didn't ring true. I've also thought about dysgraphia but I recognize that this might be normal six year old boy behavior and not an actual issue. Am I missing something else?

    Thanks for any ideas you might have.

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    I think it's impossible for any of us to really be able to tell you much about what might be up with your ds based on reading a post online rather than seeing your ds and his challenges in person, but fwiw, there are things that could be present in a child with DCD. For instance, its' not easy to "see" DCD in physical behavior - especially when you're not a trained OT and you're only used to seeing your own child's development. We didn't notice anything pointing to DCD in our ds until he was diagnosed with it - but then, looking back, we could see that the signs had been present since he was an infant. His ped never recognized them as being anything to take note of, because none were so far on the late side of development that they caused any red flags to go up (things like late walking, late sitting etc.... all fell within the range of "normal" - just on the late side of normal). Weak hand strength, moving slowly, not being terribly athletically inclined, etc could all be a part of DCD.

    Re not remembering steps or forgetting what you've asked him to do - these could be caused by different things. Just curious, have you had his vision tested? It may not seem relevant, but the way we found out our dd had severe vision issues was through seeking an evaluation that we pursued because we thought she had memory challenges - we would tell her to do something like "take your clothes up to your bedroom and put them away" and she'd never get there, would forget what she was doing by the time she'd walked up the stairs. The real challenge wasn't remembering, the challenge was remembering when she was also doing so much work to focus her eyes to get up the stairs to begin with. DD also couldn't make eye contact because she was seeing two heads at once when looking at another person smile So that's just one example of why it's really difficult to assess what's up without a thorough exam that looks at the global range of a young child's abilities and functioning.

    Re what kind of professional to see, I'd start with your pediatrician and see what he/she recommends. We've found having a neuropsych eval to be very helpful, because it looks at the whole child's functioning. It's not been the "end" of evals for our kids, but it has pinpointed where the root of their challenges was, and we were referred on to other professionals such as OTs/SLPs/etc as appropriate to help further define the diagnoses and to recommend premeditation / accommodations as needed.

    Best wishes,

    polarbear

    Joined: Jun 2014
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    Hi Lepa

    A lot of what you've written sounds very similar to my DS8

    In grade 1, we were also told his handwriting was slow but 'normal for age'. Teachers recommended using "Handwriting without Tears" at home, but I struggled to get him to do that. We brought in a private OT - I thought maybe she'd give us some exercises for him to do and that maybe she would have more success than I would at getting him to practice handwriting. She did an evaluation and told us he likely has DCD (confirmed by his pediatrician). We were very surprised! But after doing a lot of reading about it, it seems to fit.

    DS also can ride a bike just fine, but struggles with ball games and fine motor activities (he actually doesn't really like Lego, hates to use cutlery). He is also very slow a lot of the time - getting ready for school, getting in or out of the car.

    DS also struggled with reading - not with reading the words, but with reading longer passages of text. He would skip words, skip lines, and fatigue quickly. We had a visual assessment done and found he had convergence insufficiency. Now after a year of VT, his reading is improved, but he still tires quickly.

    Polarbear gave great advice (as usual) - if you can get a neuropsych evaluation and then follow up with OT, etcetera, it may tell you a lot.


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