Sorry, I just now saw the question about piano.

I did have trouble getting my son to practice the first couple of years, because he could do the songs well enough without practicing much. When the music started getting more challenging, I think it became more interesting for him and he was willing to practice more, but still not as much as he is really supposed to.

The piano teacher does not use a metronome. She also quit having use the theory book that I know she still uses with other students, because his handwriting and drawing difficulties made it difficult for him at age 5 and 6. He seems to be doing well enough without it.

One thing I noticed about his piano playing was that he never wanted to try to do songs from memory. He always needed to read the music and this was one of the things that made me think he had some kind of slight motor memory difficulty. I guess this goes along with dyspraxia. He has to play lots of different chords and his hands don't stay in one position on the piano at the level he is in and he has no trouble with this but he would have difficulty memorizing more than a few lines of music. His progress is probably average, about one level a year. He takes breaks throughout the year. The teacher doesn't give him much to work on for several weeks before his plays when he is doing a lot of rehearsals and she gave him a break the last couple of weeks before the spelling bee, because she agrees that this should be enjoyable.

I found something else interesting too. I can play a note on the piano and he can remember it hours later and sing that note. When I try this, I am off a little bit. I think taking piano lessons has definitely helped with singing in musical theater. When the kids sing a song for the first time the ones who have had musical intrument lessons sound better than the kids who didn't.