I'm going to piggy back a bit on polarbear's personal narrative in case something in our experience proves helpful to someone.
DD was a superstar as an infant - doing *everything* super early. I had never spent time around babies so I didn't see how unusual it was. I thought all those milestones I read about were aimed at concerns for babies who were falling behind, people making "amazing" comments were just trying to make a first time mom feel good, etc. Every time we went to the pediatrician for a well baby check up we got another exceptional added - DD was "exceptionally verbal", "exceptionally social", "exceptionally flexible", etc.
We enrolled her in a Gymboree class around her first birthday and she was a superstar - doing every task as the teacher was explaining it to the adults and repeating it over and over before any other baby even considered trying it once. At the end of these classes they would blow bubbles and sing a song about catching the bubbles. When DD was 18 months old I noticed that every other baby was grabbing the bubbles with joy - she was never able to grab a single bubble. Not even once. She never developed a pincer grasp for eating Cheerios. She did not want to feed herself. She did not want to play with puzzles, sorters, blocks or any other toy that required fine motor skills. She never wanted to color and when she did hold a crayon she "fisted" it.
Starting at her 18 month check up I began asking about possible problems with her fine motor/ hand eye coordination. The pediatrician kept telling me "She's just so far ahead in everything something that is age appropriate appears to be a deficit even when it isn't." It took me 3 1/2 years to get a referral for an OT eval. And that was only because I became adamant at DD's 5 year check up about concerns over kindergarten.
We had her in a wonderful play based preschool that never forced kids to do tasks, didn't do traditional academics, etc. Her teacher noticed that she avoided fine motor tasks, wasn't interested in writing but made up *amazing* stories she dictated, etc. As kindergarten approached she had some difficulty identifying some letters and numbers but teacher assumed DD didn't like being tested and was pretending. We started asking about dyslexia but were told our district wouldn't even consider looking for it prior to 3rd grade.
OT eval showed major fine motor deficits, low muscle tone, upper body weakness and hyper mobility in her joints. OT couldn't understand why we waited so long to bring her in for an eval. She should have been there at least a year earlier - she needed a year of PT before starting a minimum of 6 months of OT if she was going to be ready for kindergarten...
Kindergarten was a total disaster. Teacher not only refused to accommodate her fine motor deficit she actively punished her for it. (ie no recess because DD could not complete the writing tasks). School refused to even consider testing her to see if she qualified for services in school "She'd never qualify for services - she's too smart." Her writing delays were "laziness" and "disrespectful attitude". Her reading issues were her "not being ready". When we expressly asked the literacy specialist about dyslexia she refused to make eye contact, changed the subject and showed us out of her office.
Fortunately the school psych at our district's central office got involved because we were at an interdistrict magnet. She did an amazing job and really saved DD. Since then DD has been identified as 2E with every possible LD. Neuropsych labeled her as "NLD-ish" not because she has NLD but "because its easier than saying super high verbal along with dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, math disability, etc." She is now in an out of district placement at a spec Ed school where most of her day is spent with interventions (OT, speech, Wilson reading,etc). Fortunately she is learning to use AT (iPad, audio books, etc) as work arounds but it will be tough. I will never know if her path would have been different if she hadn't been so advanced the pediatrician would have been willing to refer her for those early issues.
By the way yes we have family history here too. DH found out he was dyslexic after be became a teacher and he was used as an example of an obviously dyslexic adult during a spec Ed training session. After learning all of this about DD his parents told him they had been approached several times by the spec Ed teacher at his elementary school about providing him services and they declined. "Oh no he'll be fine in regular classes." His 85+year old father cries any time we discuss DD's situation because he was obviously LD at a time when no one understood them. "They told me I was lazy and stupid. But I wasn't. I tried as hard as I could but I just couldn't do it..."
So yes they get found earlier if you are looking for them but only if someone takes your concerns seriously...
Last edited by Pemberley; 09/01/14 08:10 AM.
