Thanks for the links. I'll have to check those out later. My son's piano teacher said my son's hand strength is a lot better than it was when he first started piano lessons at age 5, but she recently changed the fingering on one of the songs he is working on because he was having trouble and my son says it is because some of his fingers are weaker than others. The teacher told me that it worked better for him but if he played the song in front of judges he would have points deducted for the change. Trying to figure out when to make changes and when not to make changes is so hard for me. I told the piano teacher that I just wanted him to be able to play for his own enjoyment and to build strength and endurance.
He plays Guitar Hero and Rock Band and while I can see that he makes improvement in accuracy and endurance with lots of practice, he would have trouble doing it at the highest levels that his friends are capable of doing.
But it isn't just a hand strength and endurance issue that he deals with. His visual motor integration was lower than average both times he was tested and we were also told that he might need to work on visual memory with Where's Waldo type pictures, which didn't make sense to me because he can glance at a word and remember how it is spelled. But even now, at age 10 he still occasionally writes P backwards and when I asked him to write the symbol for line GH he wrote the GH on top instead of below the line like the book showed. It is little things like this that cause extra problems and one doctor will say he has dysgraphia, but an OT, after giving him another test, will say his handwriting is low normal. My son says there is just a glitch in his brain and some days it is there, especially when he is tired or stressed, and some days it isn't.
If he is having a glitch day, he will have more trouble at piano lessons, writing math problems out, anything motor related.
It is so hard for me to explain motor dyspraxia and hypotonia and "glitch" days to other people. I don't understand how those neural connections are working one day and not another.
