Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional retained reflexes v. dyslexia, CAPD, ADHD...

I think your dh has a good point - there are so many symptoms that overlap among different diagnoses that it's easy to come up with theories while researching that could lead a parent to wonder about all sorts of possible diagnoses applying to their child. And, at the same time, as a parent you really have no idea to what degree those symptoms need to be seen in order to be a part of a diagnosis.


Both. You can address individual skills with OT, for instance, things like buttoning or tying shoes or handwriting etc. OTOH that doesn't mean that the skills will last. Please know I am not an expert and I'm only speaking about my child *and* I have no idea if any of this applies to your ds - so there you have my disclaimer lol! Anyway, dyspraxia is a complicated challenge in that it can impact people across many different body systems and in that it doesn't impact anyone in exactly the same way. In my ds, the way his brain coordinates fine motor skills is impacted, and he needed *lots* of repetition (way above a neurotypical child's level) to learn things like how to tie shoes, how to print, and how to create written expression. He also sometimes loses skills he doesn't continually work on - for instance, the year he learned how to tie his shoes (3rd or 4th grade), he also forgot how to tie them when he had a school holiday for a week and didn't wear shoes he had to tie for that one week. It didn't take 8 years for him to learn how to tie them again (maybe a few weeks), but it was obviously noticable compared to a nt child. He learned how to write in cursive starting in 4th grade, continued to practice and learn it in 5th grade, then didn't use it in 6th grade and by the second semester of 6th grade no longer remembered how to make any cursive letters except for being able to write his name in cursive.

There are things that he hasn't been specifically through OT for that have improved over time. One of those is coordination at things like throwing frisbees and catching balls. He'll never be a sports superstar, but regular work on those things in PE at school combined with (I think) maturity have helped him find a few sports he enjoys.

There are also other things we just don't worry about because they are small things in the big picture of life stretching out ahead of him, and he also has limited free time as it is with fitting in the therapy we feel he absolutely needs and with the demands of schoolwork (which takes him longer than a nt kid - not because he doesn't understand concepts, but because handwriting is slow, his movements are slow, and he struggles with written expression).

So - for any 2e child, as well as any child really, we pick and choose what to put time/effort/$ into and let some things go.

Re timetables - there were quite a few things in ds' early development that either came late (but not late enough for us as parents to realize they were anything other than quirky-late), and a few things he totally skipped (he never babbled or experimented with baby-talk, just was quite for 3 years and then talked like in complicated complex sentences; he also was late crawling, tried it a few times, then really didn't crawl much ever at all).


It sounds like things are going well! You'll understand a lot more about what's going on with your ds after his eval by the Eides. I know it may seem like things are moving slow sloooooow at this point, but your ds is doing well, and you've got a good plan in place for now, so know that you've done a great job so far!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Just updating, our DD has been diagnosed with Aspergers. She is increasingly aware of her lack of sporting ability, how much slower she runs, etc. Late last year she went on a whole day walk (steeply uphill) with her school and was in terrible pain at the end and home sick for a week after. The low tone and hupermobility do amount to real weaknesses that are easy to underestimate or forget to plan for. Especially for her teachers.

Her coordination IS better, and I think that honestly piano and swimming and circus has done the most with regard to left / right integration, crossin the midline, etc. I don't think her OT was the most important therapy in this regard.

And for all the progress she's made, ultimately she is not neurotypical...

I hope you get useful answers KJP.

I find this thread very interesting and am following as well. My son has mild hypotonia, hypermobile joints, vision disorder (also neuromuscular like the hypotonia and hypermobile joints). While he doesn't seem to be as severe or have as severe of symptoms as some of which I am reading here and on the Internet, I do believe he has mild to moderate left/right integration issues. He can ride a bike without training wheels (as has been able to since late 5 years old). He inline-skates and is now picking up ice skating. He plays soccer passably well but other sports he is terrible at... His coordination, of course, is poor.

As a baby, he did not crawl until in his 7 month (I think that was considered a little late but not really 'out of the ordinary' or delayed) so he did cross crawl but not for long -as he started walking in the last week of his 10th month.

His big current issue is swimming. He is really motivated and despite having swimming lessons every day only gets so far ... while the other children move up in the lessons he does not progress. I realize now it is very likely the integration/crossing midline getting in the way.

DS has been getting vision therapy for almost 7 months now and I see a lot of benefits from that. But he has been getting OT for years and I am kind of disgusted with it as he always has a two year delay in fine motor writing skills and the gap never seems to close. The most improvement I have seen in OT has been with the introduction of the vision therapy. Once he started VT, his OT seem to be having much more of an impact.

Our school psychologist suggested a very progressive innovative OT place near to us and I am excited about starting DS there to make further progress in this area of left/right integration http://www.atotalapproach.com/ . The owner/director is big on the whole integration thing and her therapies are very geared to that - integrated the senses, the hemispheres, reflexes, etc. I am so hopeful. And I hear wonderful things about this place from the school psych as well anecdotal.

I am wondering if anyone has sought or considered chiropractic care as treatment for these issues? I stumbled upon a brief experience with chiro care for these issues quite accidentally and surprisingly it seemed to help. When DS was learning to ride his bike without training wheels - he was really having problems - uncoordinated, low stamina, etc. All the other kids in the neighborhood could do it and had been for at least a year or so. But he seemed pretty hopeless. (He also NEVER rode a big wheel, tricycle or anything like that despite us buying like 4 different kinds and encouraging him a lot - he refused and now I know it was that he just couldn't do it physically). He actually didn't even ride his big bike with training wheels more than a handful of times. What he actually rode a lot and what he enjoyed was the balance bike (a two wheeler with no training wheels and no pedals). I guess his balance is decent - it is the coordinating of pedaling, steering and balancing that he couldn't do.

Anyway, despite really being motivated to ride his two wheeler pedal bike he started feeling pretty hopeless and he began to refuse to try. I stopped all encouraging of it as I was becoming frustrated and exasperated and I did not like 'who I was becoming' when trying to teach him. It looked pretty bleak for the bike riding. Around the same time I became friendly with woman whose husband was/is a chiro. I was telling her about DS's hypotonia one day and how I was worried. She said chiro care can help with that. So, I am pretty open-minded I thought "okay we'll give it a shot." I took him to her husband to be adjusted. After the 3rd or 4th visit. DS got out his bike with DH and just started picking it up...There was no stopping him after that, within a day or so he had it mastered. I actually hadn't even connected the two - i.e., it never dawned on me that the chiro treatments could/may affect the bike riding. But when he got it so quickly and so well after weeks before seeming so hopeless and at the point of refusing to even try, I just have a strong suspicion that the chiro actually had something to do with it. DH said it was merely coincidence. I ended getting sick with pneumonia and we dropped the chiro appointments. I think he only had like 6 in all? maybe as many 8... I can't remember. Anyway, at the end of the last summer when I saw how hard the swimming is for him, how poor his coordination is with regard to swimming, I decided that this spring I would take him to a pediatric chiro and ghet some adjustments before swimming lessons in early summer. I want to see if that helps (as it seems to have helped with the bike riding). Now after reading about all of this, I think I will ask the chiro's opinion on chiro care affecting these type of issues. Just wondering if others have any thoughts or experience with this. I am going to do it anyway so I will report back and let y'all know if we have the same experience with the swimming as we did with the bike riding!!! I hope so - DS really really wants to at least be competent swimming and go down the big slide like all the other kids his age!

My son's bike riding problems are the same. We have a balance bike, small bike with training wheels and a larger bike. Last week he made a new friend in the neighborhood, a boy one year younger that had just moved here. The four year old was zipping all around on our small bike with the training wheels. DS tried and tried and couldn't make it go at all.

It was the first time I saw concern on his face about his differences. He has had a really good attitude about not being as fast or strong as his friends. He usually just shrugs and says "I am not very good at -----, lets do this instead"

A note on chiropractic: my SIL is a pediatrician and very mainstream. She had a patient with recurring ear infections. The kid's mom decided to take the kid to a chiropractor. My SIL was skeptical but wished them the best. The kid hasn't had an ear infection since.

Hope it works for you.

My DD had a course of cranio sacaral work with a specialist physio ( some osteopaths or chiros do this too) and I do think it was beneficial. Hard to say in isolation, she was so having OT, swimming, piano, etc. Diet change had the biggest single impact.