I am hoping that my insurance will pay for a neuropsychological assessment because I think it might tell us if my son has processing speed issues and we will have more pieces of the puzzle. He has never had one of these before, he only an individual achievement test given to him by an educational psychologist almost four years ago.
My son with motor dyspraxia and handwriting issues is almost eleven and still can't write quickly and when I had him do dictation recently, he made a p backwards. I worry that this might cause him some embarrassment if he ever does this in front of other kids. He just does it once in a while, maybe one out of 50 times. I wonder if it is because he has the motor memory problems and the p is similar to a 9. I think he is still having to really think about how each letter is made when he writes and it slows him down. His cursive writing is still not as fast as printing because he has only been doing cursive for a year but I am hoping it will get faster. His cursive, actually a mix of printed capital letters and the rest cursive, looks more legible to me than his printing.
I think my son might have dysgraphia and one doctor agreed after looking at his writing sample, but he has never had OT for handwriting because in the six sessions he had over a year ago with the OT, she didn't think the handwriting was as much of an issue as his sensory issues and she wanted to work on those first. Our insurance wouldn't authorize any more OT because they won't pay for anything educational related--they say the school should pay for it--but my son can't go to the school because he is twice exceptional and there is no law requiring an appropriate education for him. So I just do the best I can do to help him, and try not to get wrapped up in how unfair this is to my child. Getting mad only takes the energy away from me that I need to help my child.
I try not to think about the therapy that everyone else seems to be able to get that my son couldn't get because we couldn't get insurance to pay and we couldn't afford it on our own.
I do feel like I continue to get better at jumping through hoops to get what he needs (although it will take months to get it) and my son and I are learning to do this together. I think learning to jump through hoops might be a better skill than some of the physical ones he needs to learn so maybe there is some good that will come from this. But my son told me my overexcitabilities become more apparent when I am hoop jumping.
There were about 5 multiplication facts that my son would sometimes miss on timed tests on the computer when he didn't practice for a while. He would sometimes go for weeks without doing math and he would have to relearn what we called his mental block math facts.
I remember memorizing charts and things like that for tests. I could keep it in my memory long enough to be able to recreate it on the test, but my son would never do this because it involves writing. He would rather use what I think is a combination of different types of memory to recall math facts and formulas and to write as little as possible. He learns so differently from me and it has been challenging for me to step back and let him figure how to do things the way that is easiest for him.
