Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional advice for fine motor issues

My DS8 just started OT at school. I thought it was just for fine motor issues. The OT tells me she is working actually working on 3 identified issues:

balance, fine motor, and "organization."

She said that often kids with his set of coordination issues also have problems with organization and messiness. That is certainly true with him. Is there really some sort of connection, and if so, do you know of any books I could read on this subject that might give strategies to help at home?

Also, she said it would make sense to start teaching him to type. We tried two years ago in first grade, with a program we bought through Scholastic Book club. He hated it and only did it once. Any recommendations for a teach typing program for an eight year old with fine motor issues? Also, any ways to motivate him to learn typing, and keep him at it?

BK

Typing e-mails to grandma or to friends, maybe? That's what first got my son typing. Or any video game that isn't a typing teacher, but which requires typing might do it.

Often gifted kids will learn skills quickly if learning those skills will make more convenient something else that they want to do. That's what I would shoot for.

Bk1-

This cluster of symptoms can go along with non verbal learning disability or Asperger's syndrome. I don't know anything else about your child, but I want to suggest that you read about these issues and see if it sounds familiar. My oldest was identified in kindy as having social issues, hypotonia (low muscle tone) both gross and fine motor delays,and something called either postural insecurity or instability. He was later identified as having mild Asperger's syndrome. This does affect his executive function, or ability to organize, prioritize, etc.

My son hated writing and avoided it at all costs, until he learned to type. He was a bit older, at 13, but it made a huge difference for him. Suddenly he could really express himself, and at this point, he's in college and dreams of becoming a novelist.

If you read about NVLD and AS and think it might be a possibility, you should seek the opinion of a pediatric neuropsychologist to confirm or rule out these disorders. We delayed getting a neuropsych evaluation for years because the school OT and PT said that J "couldn't" have AS, as he could hold a conversation when alone with the person providing OT or PT services. They ignored his deep seated preoccupations and monologue style speech patterns, and he missed out on important years when he might have been given more help.

take care-

Thanks for the suggestions, Kriston and Lorel. Also, it's encouraging to hear that a child with these issues can develop typing and learn to express himself!

Lorel-- are there any specific books you could suggest for NVLD or Aspberger's?



bk

Speaking with my OT hat on:
issues related to balance, fine motor skills and organization skills sounds like the OT is actually addressing a sensory integration disorder, more recently also termed sensory processing disorder. Sensory integration is a neurological process that involves our brains acquiring sensory information, combining it and processing it (integration)and then being able to respond to the information. Sort of an "input, process, output" model of neurological function. A good book is SI and the Child, by A. Jean Ayres, PhD.

Most children on the autism spectrum, including kids with Aspergers, display some degree of SI dysfunction. BUT....the presence of SI dysfunction DOES NOT mean a child has autism. Many children with SI dysfunction have other concurring diagnoses or NO OTHER diagnosis.

To answer your question, yes, children who have balance and fine motor problems can also display problems with organization skills. The connection is typically based in the spatial/temporal skills, perceptual and higher level cognitive development that are disrupted because of lower level physical skill development.

Anything by Tony Attwood is good, and you could also look at the OASIS web site. To be honest, I haven't kept up on the literature since my child is considerably older. I do belong to an excellent list serve for parents of kids who are both gifted and challenged by nvld or as. Please ask me about it if you get a diagnosis.

As Debbie suggests above, your child may only be exhibiting SID issues, but it may be a good idea to read up on the autism spectrum just in case.

good luck-

Hi BK,
I'm glad to hear the OT is starting. My son also had the SI issues and benifited greatly from OT at age 7. Are these SI issues the same as gifted OverExcitabilities? I don't know and I don't care, as long as the OT helped, and yes, once the touchtyping fairy came to our house everything was much much better.

Here's how it went at our house -
Age 6 -causally introduce various learn to type softwares
Age 7 - heavy duty bribing to use Mavis Beacon for 20 half hour sessions over a 2 month period. Used experience to introduce "skill-type learning" where one tries and tries and tries to no results and then "presto" skill appears. I really wanted DS to know that this is normal.
Age 8 - once in a while when DS wanted a toy or some money, we set up challenges where he earned 25 cents per half hour of Mavis. Note: we had to change the music, eliminate the canned voice that says "good job" as DS felt criticised by it, and cut out the games. He was able to get through most of the keyboard, but typing speed was still around 10 WPM.
Age 9 - Found a mini-game he liked, where he had to spell short letter combinations to manipulate the direction of tetris-like tiles as they fell. He played it compulsivly. Speed rose to 35 wpm. Then he happened to have an interest in "Runescape" an online chat-adventure game, and used his daily 30 minutes of screen time at it.
10th Birthday - 100 WPM, with plenty of inaccuracies, but started to be able to please teachers with his written product if allowed to type. Asynchrouous Development is much less of an issue. Gradeskip facilitated because he can use quick typing to get through megamounds of homework that other kids stay up late to do.

Take home message - idea way to teach a skill that requires lots of boring repitition is to find a way to require the skill in the course of an intersting challenge. Some say that our kids are like Elephants, starving on blades of grass, and needing whole trees to sustain themselves intellectually. My response is that, if you want my elephant to learn those particular blades of grass, it will go better if I make garland out of the grass and hang it one the trees he wants to eat. I've noticed that this also works on myself!

Good luck with the touch typing!
Trinity

Debbie and Lorel:

Thanks for the book and website recommendations. I'll take a look.

LOL -- Trinity-- We are using Runescape time to entice DS to try Aleks math! The way he plays Runescape, he isn't typing much, mostly just going on quests and making and selling goods at the store. He doesn't respond often to players who try to talk to him. Perhaps I could play up how much more he would enjoy Runescape if he could type quickly _and_ give him Runescape time for typing practice.

bk