Thank you all for your insights and advice! It is so very much appreciated.
I met with my son's OT since my original post(and his teacher and principal and school counselor re his 504 for his hypotonia) . The OT was with me on the LD - she brought up gently how he is inverting letters and numbers A LOT. Of course a certain amount of that is still normal but he is doing it much more than his peers and doesn't seem to be getting better. I had noticed that as well and was very open to hearing her suspicions. (finally validation!) And she and I were chatting away about it. I shared the WISC eval and report and she also thinks it is well worth looking into LD and/or a visuo-spatial disorder (and possibily eye therapy to help with that). She wasn't convinced, of course, that he has an LD but she can see why there I am concerned and she is concerned too. She thinks it's more likely a visual motor integration issue that may be addressed with some vision tehrapy (though she warned me if I mention vision therapy to a psychologist as the psych will very likely 'pooh-pooh' it. LOL. I had already had that happen and was confused by it so now I know!
I made an appt with the Eye Institute for the visuo-spatial/visual-motor integration eval and I also made an appt with a neuropsychologist to further look into whether the has a Learnign Disability - potenitally dysgraphia (I suspect spatial dysgraphia). I am not sure how great the neurpsych is - I picked her based on the fact that she accepts my insurance. She supposedly specializes in LD and gifted issues but we'll see. I have the consult tomorrow so I'll try to get a better feel for her and now, with the posts here, I have a little more insight and more questions for her to help me. I just want either confirm or rule out an LD, ykim?
Incidently, re the the block design, my husband bought some block design type game on amazon - just on a whim as a he was looking to see what the block design test is and what I was talking about (he was not at the testing). He came across the game and bought it and it arrived yesterday. He took it out and played with it with both sons. The one at issue here, Ben, again at first didn't understand what he was suppose to do but then once explained he started doing it - and getting better and better at it. Granted, they were just playing around and it's not like I have a copy of the WISC test to replicate the exact designs, ect...plus we weren't timing or anything. But he seemed to catch on and get noticeably, progressively better at it. So, now, husband suspects that Ben (son at issue) just didn't undertsand the what he was suppose to do (and was nervous) and that with a little experience with the game he'll be fine on that part of the test in the future. I don't know. Ben did mention to me that he had trouble hearing the tester (this was after the test <eye roll> when I asked why he said he didn't know the meanng of some words I KNEW he knew. He said "oh, I had trouble hearing her at times, she spoke too low sometimes).
Incidentally, my 3 year old son was a wiz at the block design game and very attracted to it (he also loves puzzles, which DS has never cared for) - kept playing it by himself after the other one went off to read. Three year old was replicating the designs shown on the instructions all by himself. I thought it was funny how their strengths are so different. DS is strong with vocab and language and his three year old brother seems to love visuo-spatial challenges - loves puzzles, loved the block design, etc.
Anyway, I am not convinced there is an LD and I certainly don't WANT him to have one BUT I didn't want it missed and not addressed and accomodated for if he does have one Yk?
Also, does anyone have any suggestions how I could better advocate for his hypotonia disability? He does get weekly OT at school and I am thinking of adding some weekly private OT. But what else could I be doing for the hypotonia in terms of accomodatiosn at achool and during testing, does anyone know? I have a 504 plan for him but I just don't know what to push for other than understanding and OT...
Last edited by Irena; 09/27/13 09:03 AM.
