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!
