Questions202, my ds has dyspraxia and related fine motor dysgraphia. From what I understand in researching dyspraxia, no two cases are exactly the same in any two human beings - dyspraxia can impact a wide number of motor systems that impact how a person functions, but exactly how the impact plays out is going to be very *very* individual. I have some sources of info on this that you could include in what you provide to the school, but they aren't things I can easily put my hands on at the moment. If you do some googling on dyspraxia you might be able to find something you can use. If not, and if you can wait a few weeks, I can send you the notes I have.
1) Does your school provide OT to students who test highly on academic tests (the motor planning primarily affects social and emotional).
I would be cautious at this stage re looking at the impact of your dd's dyspraxia as purely social and emotional. That is most likely how it plays out at her age, but if you try to frame it from the perspective of how OT is addressing a necessary motor skill you will most likely be more effective in advocating at school, plus that's truly what the OT is for - learning how to either accomplish of work around the skill, which in turn reduces the social/emotional impact (plus gives your dd the ability to perform necessary tasks that she must do in school or in life).
I will add though - the social/emotional challenges didn't end for my ds after his diagnosis and initial therapies. They did fade *tremendously* but they are still, today, as a teen, something that he has to deal with. It's not easy feeling different from other kids, and you'll most likely find as the years go by that there will be additional motor tasks that will crop up as challenging that you hadn't anticipated. Perhaps not - hopefully not! But it's definitely happened with my ds.
Another poster above has described when/why OT services are required to be provided by schools. Our ds was not eligible for OT through our schools (although he did qualify for an IEP for written expression and organization in spite of having high test scores and good grades). The key in advocacy is to understand the constraints that are in place due to policy, to understand what your child's individual needs are, and to understand how your child's disability impacts their access to their education and their ability to learn. It helped me a lot in advocating to read the wrightslaw website and also to consult with a local advocate (which I was able to find at no cost through the wrightslaw yellow pages). The guidelines in my school district for qualifying for OT services were *not* tied to grades on academic tests, but to scores on OT-specific tests.
They're not getting grades yet and teachers just think she's not trying or caring.
This is something that happens often with students who have a disability that the teacher is either unaware of or doesn't understand the impact of. I understand you are wary of giving your dd's teacher information that mentions verbal challenges when your dd doesn't appear to have them, but it sounds like giving her information and the name of the diagnosis is going to be important to getting past her (teacher) impression that your dd is not trying.
If you can get OT what did you have to do to get it? Is private worth it, even if it is difficult to afford? (We are paying $200 a week.)
We did a 9-month course of handwriting OT for our ds, but that was it. It included a few exercises aimed at tying shoes etc, but the primary focus was handwriting. We did it through private OT as he didn't qualify at school - yet he definitely needed it. Because it was a therapy that our insurance company felt should be covered by the schools, our insurance didn't cover it. We were given a few options by our therapist - including no sessions at all with her after his eval, but a set of exercises we could do with our ds at home. Another option was every other week sessions, or once-a-month (or even less frequent) with us doing home exercises and using the sessions with the OT as check-in and progress monitoring. We opted to just do the straight once-per-week sessions and they were invaluable for a few things - ds went from having severe wrist pain when using handwriting to no pain (although eventually the pain returned), he learned good posture and grip while handwriting, he no longer wrote with extreme pencil pressure (used to rip up paper while writing plus break pencils), and came out of OT with legible handwriting. So all of that was good, and I'd pay for it again if I was back in the same place once again. OTOH, it's equally important to realize what our ds *didn't* get from OT - it's not a cure for dysgraphia or dyspraxia. He still needs repetition to learn motor tasks, and he still needs accommodations for academics (handwriting in particular) and some of the skills of daily living. What he needs in terms of those accommodations really isn't much different than what it would be if he'd never had the OT - the OT basically improved muscle tone, but didn't "cure" dyspraxia. Big difference - so if I *had* to have cut back on any of our expenses at any point in time, the OT is the thing I would have dropped. But again - that's for my ds and for his particular case of dyspraxia. Each child's needs are going to be different.
2) Is there a difference between poor motor planning and dyspraxia?
There may be other diagnoses that include poor motor planning. I think though that difficulty with neurological connections required for motor planning is at the heart of dyspraxia.
3} Has the OT helped your child in school? If so, how?
I answered this above, but would add - if you want to advocate for school to provide the OT, you need to be very specific in correlating what the OT addresses with an academic impact - i.e., if you are trying to address handwriting impact, measure how slow your dd's handwriting is relative to same age peers, look at actual handwriting samples for evidence of reversals, poor spacing, irregular caps/punctuation etc, watch how she forms her letters - is it consistent and is it the same way your school teaches, etc. Also watch her grip and posture - do they look normal or does she need help learning proper grip/posture while writing. Things like that - and if it's not handwriting that is the issue, do the same type of observation and evidence-gathering for whatever area you want the OT to address. Basically have "data" to support the request. Data doesn't have to be limited to test data!
Best wishes,
polarbear
