Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Frustrated Son with Dyspraxia

I haven't posted in awhile but this whole issue has really been frustrating all of us and thought that maybe someone could offer some suggestions. My DS8 has had an IEP since he was 3 and has been getting speech and OT services as a "drive in" student since we homeschool. We "drive in" to our zoned school one day a week - 30 min. for speech and then 30 min for OT. He had the same OT and Speech for about 3 years and then this past year we were rezoned to another school so this year he has a new speech/OT. Our son has Dyspraxia and is HG - but his 2 therapists he has been seeing for awhile to deal with PTSD (a whole other story - he was diagnosed about 10 months ago with it) - they both believe he is more on the PG scale.

Handwriting has been a MAJOR issue for him for as long as I can remember. If I am his scribe he can go on and on and "write" a 50 page story that has a beginning/middle/end. He is very verbal and uses vocabulary that takes people by surprise and he has a very vivid imaginiation. With homeschooling we have not pushed formal handwriting lessons - we attempted to do this last year and it caused massive issues/fights and made him hate writing that much more so we backed way off and we were pleasently surprised to see that he was slowly writing more and more on his own but still not up to what would be considered on grade level. His past OT was very pleased with his progress and she as well did not focus all her energy on handwriting - instead she worked on muscle building activities and would throw in sporadic writing activities and she shared that his best bet if we chose to go back to school was that he would be need a laptop or possibly voice recognition equipment that would scribe for him. Well fast forward to our current issue.....his OT is nothing like his old OT and she instead has him come in and do the traditional "journal" writing where he has to sit and write a handful of sentences about what he did over the week or the last day and pretty much nothing else. She is not a very nurturing soul and is more of a matter of fact/my why or the highway kind of person which is NOT a good matchup for my son. Se has tried a few different pencils and grips to see if anything else helps his hand fatigue but no special paper/slant board/other techniques and my son HATES going to OT now. Our last session ended with the OT coming to me and saying "that I can do no more with him" - which is mindblowing - he is 8 and you are telling me that you can do nothing else on the planet to help this child. It just seems asinine to me. She shares that she has him come in and that he refuses to sit and write his sentences so she butts heads with him over the rest of their time period and she feels she has done all she can to help him. She said he will just have to be a keyboarder - which I already told her at the beginning of the year but that she has no other suggestions.

Today before we left to go to Speech/OT, DS shared that he felt stupid and dumb that he needed to go in for help with writing. He said it wasn't fair that he had Dyspraxia and that he was really stupid (he is a massive perfectionist which we have been really trying hard to work on). He was angry and frustrated because he knew she would make him sit down and just write sentences. The teacher came out at the end of the session and she was just totally disgusted - you could just see it in her whole body expression. She said DS absolutely refused to do any writing at all and that she was tired of him refusing and that she said she couldn't do anything else with him and that we may need to look at having to drop OT. Which again is asinine to me!!! Here we have a kid who very obviously needs help and just because her method of force feeding sentence writing isn't working, she is throwing the towel in and saying that she will recommend that we drop OT. Great - my son had a horrible experience with public school last year and he honestly hates school (hence the homeschooling) and here is a teacher telling him to his face that she gives up on him - nice - thanks for adding more fuel to the fire that school stinks.

I have NO idea what my rights are when it comes to his IEP. I have tried reading the Wright's Law information and I honestly admit that I get bogged down in the legal-ize writing and get totally lost. I just found out by his Speech teacher (who has ZERO problems with DS) that I have the right to call an assessment to see what adaptive electronic devices he might be able to use if he qualifies - don't know the official name of the whole process....so I put in that I wanted to call a meeting to ask for this. I don't know if I am able to call for any more help - if this OT teacher has given up on him then I would think we would be able to request a different OT at another school....or something. His past OT has no issues with him at all and he was actually making progress. With Dyspraxia, it will get better a bit - but it will be something he will have to deal with all his life, he will have to learn adaptive techniques and that is where I thought the OT's job was supposed to come in here! If he was in public school they would not be allowed to say, "I give up - sorry I can't do anything else - you are on your own". Any one have any suggestions or has gone through the same thing? I don't know where to start to see about getting him the help he needs. Thanks for an input!!

I really feel for you. I have had huge issues trying to get appropriate services from the district for my gifted/AS/dyspraxic son. You do have a right to ask for an evaluation regarding the need for "assistive technology".

Talk to the ESE coordinator at the school where your son gets therapy, and then follow up the conversation with a request in writing, something like "This is to confirm our conversation on (date) where we discussed that I am requesting an evaluation for DS regarding the need for assistive technology and related services."

If they provide your son with assistive technology, be aware that the school may try to drop OT at that point, claiming that the accommodations of keyboard and text-to-speech software bring his functioning up to the level where he doesn't need OT. There are a few routes you can take to fight this, if it happens, including requesting an outside evaluation at public expense if you disagree with their OT's assessment.


Best of luck.

Is there any way to get this OT to talk to your old OT about what works with your child? If it's the same school district, maybe you could figure out an appropriate staff person who knows both of them to make this suggestion. I'm thinking that the current OT might not take it well from you.