It not my understanding that typically dyspraxia would be diagnosed based on IQ testing. When our son was evaluated for dyspraxia it involved among other things a physical exam by a neurologist lasting more than an hour. As I recall your reason for seeking out this evaluation was in part because you believed your son had dyspraxia, isn't that correct? It may be that part of why he got that diagnosis is that based on parental reports he was having this sort of difficulty and needed therapy so it seemed like the most convenient diagnosis. I would keep in mind these sorts of very soft diagnoses are not made with a blood test or anything so certainly they can always be wrong. I would just take the diagnosis for what it might give him in therapies and try not to feel confined or limited by it.
I do think it was probably a diagnosis of convenience, but that is the label he is stuck with for now. For years we couldn't get referrals through his PCP at the military base and we were later told by his current doctor it was because there wasn't any record of any disability. They had to see some kind of diagnosis to refer my son for therapy. When my son was 6, my husband managed to talk the doctor into referring my son to a developmental pediatrician. That doctor would not put a diagnosis on paper but thought it might be dyspraxia. She said he definitely still had hypotonia. The developmental pediatrician and the occupational therapist that worked with her both said he had sensory integration difficulties (vestibular and proprioceptive) but our insurance didn't pay for sensory integration therapy. She told me to read a book "The Out of Sync Child Has Fun" and work with him at home and that is what I did. The month he turned 7 he was tested by the educational psychologist and he tested at a 4th grade level in math but the psychologist noticed that he seemed very tired and he thought my son could have gone higher if he could have done the testing over more than one session. His reading level was even higher than the math but again, the fatigue issues were a problem and his eyes got tired right along with the rest of him. Where was the evidence then that he would have a lower performance IQ. I think if they could have started the test at a higher level my son could have gone further. It looks to me like the fatigue and endurance issues which are made worse now by migraine headaches and a very uncomfortable scoliosis brace are the only learning disabilities he has. When he is well rested and not in pain there is absolutely no evidence of any kind of learning disability. His memory is excellent, both short term and long term. It was his ability to do physical things that was sometimes a problem because of the low muscle tone.
My son saw a neurosurgeon last week who reviewed the MRIs and he wouldn't tell us if he thought the "almost chiari" thing could have been the cause of the hypotonia and headaches and if the forceps delivery might also have had something to do with all of this. All he would tell us was that he didn't need surgery for it and that he thought we were doing all the right things with him because he was doing so well. I asked him several different ways trying to get more information. I told him I had read a lot about neuroplasticity and that my son was doing so well and not showing any symptoms of dyspraxia except for slow handwriting and mild dysgraphia but I just wanted to know why my son's endurance and fatigue issues never improved and why he developed scoliosis when no one else in the family had it. He kept repeating "he doesn't need surgery" as if that was all he was required to say so I was again, left with more questions than answers and for diagnosis we get the same old "TBD" which I think means to be determined and a referral for more testing--this time an MRI of my son's spine. All of these tests are causing so much anxiety and taking up so much of our time but we have to rule out a few more scary things before we can stop. I went online to see what they might be wanting to rule out and read about some really scary things that could require risky surgery on his spine. I am trying really hard to focus on other things, like the fact that he seems to be enjoying his writing composition class. Yesterday, the class was doing peer review of the 5 paragraph essays they had written. My son read his essay, and he always sounds like an actor when he reads and when he writes he usually includes something funny, and one of the girls in the class started clapping. I think that was a nice little self esteem booster.
