[quote=blackcat]
1) Gross motor - my ds' OT assessment for gross motor was "near enough average" to not raise any red flags - but the testing situation was one-on-one with no time demands. He struggled tremendously with team sports in upper elementary and early middle school (things like soccer etc) where he had to use gross motor skills to kick/throw/etc when there was a time demand and lots of extra information to process at the same time (direction ball was coming from, where he needed to kick it toward, which teammates were where etc). Yet at the same time, his gross motor skills are a-ok for things like biking and skiing (individual sports) - as long as he's not racing against a same-age or same-size peer.
2) Speech - apraxia of speech is often found in children with DCD. We never really would have suspected this impacted our ds (although one of his diagnostic symptoms of DCD was his lack of early speech). Then in 4th grade, he started telling me that he had a tough time getting his thoughts out verbally (prior to that time he had been struggling tremendously with written expression and we didn't realize that it wasn't all about writing). He also doesn't open his mouth very wide when he talks - and that's something that didn't become obvious until he was a little older.
I would love to talk more about DCD and odd symptoms (and what to expect in the future)--maybe someone should start a new thread. DS is, strangely, acceptable with swimming. He's now in Level 3 and can swim across the deep end, do a kneeling dive, tread water, do the backstroke acceptably (although he has problems coordinating his arms and legs). He looks reasonable for his age (6), although he'll porbably never be on a competitive swim team. But he at least looks average. But then, if you throw a ball at him it bounces off his chest. LOL. I can't even imagine him in a soccer game or baseball game. So some physical things are definitely more challenging than others.
In terms of apraxia of speech, I do think this is an issue although all of the speech therapists we've seen swear up and down he does NOT have apraxia of speech. He is able to copy sounds and sound patterns, his articulation is now reasonable, most people can understand him. However his speech is SLOW and his prosody and pitch are odd. The speech therapists have NO IDEA how to treat this and they look at me skeptically when I say it's because he is dyspraxic.
In terms of sensory, if anything he is under-sensitive. As a toddler he would fall down an entire flight of steps and get up at the bottom and keep walking like nothing happened. He is a toe-walker on and off and also flaps his arms when he's excited. On the surface he appears like he has ASD just based on some of his mannerisms and I know there is some overlap. I am HOPING that some of this stuff resolves over time. Then I think maybe I should keep trying to get him to specialists who can actually deal with the problems and know what to do.
