Motor Dyspraxia
May 18th, 2009
My son is 6 and a half years old and recently his teacher expressed her concerns about him in class. He was assessed by her earlier in the year, showing a high level of intelligence. His reading level is 28. His maths testing was very good. He is a very sociable child. However his writing is very poor and is not a good reflection of his intelligence. By her suggestion he has visited an occupational therapist who assessed him at below average and mentioned he shows traits of motor dyspraxia. I completed the tick test on this site and ticked 17 out of the 35. I am wondering if you can offer any advice on what I should be doing next, many thanks
Hi,
It seems very odd that your son has been assessed by his teacher as highly intelligent but then as below average. He is either bright or below average. He cannot be both.
Correct diagnosis is so important. He has problems with writing so he could be either dyslexic or dyspraxic or have some problem within the autistic spectrum.
If he finds making friends easy then we can probably rule out the autistic spectrum, but you say his maths is good and children with motor dyspraxia usually have problems with maths.
If you read the book I have written on Dyspraxia I think you would be able to tell if he had that. It only costs $8.
If he is dyslexic he will have problems recalling the look of words and you will notice that he has most problems with the small irregularly spelt words. If he is all the time trying to sound out words and spelling them as they sound rather than as they look then he should be taught by phonics. Then use my Phonics program.
If the writing problem is due to motor dyspraxia he will also have problems with drawing. If his drawing is fine but his writing bad then his problems are not likely to be due to dyspraxia
There is a SPELD organization in Melbourne who may be able to help you.
get back to me if you have more questions.
Cheers
Dawn
5 Comments Add your own
1. Lori | July 14th, 2009 at 2:38 am
I have an 11 year old son who was recently diagnosed with motor dyspraxia. He learned to read on his own at 2 1/2. At 4 I could spell out words from newspaper comic strips and he could identify words without looking at them even though he had not been taught to read these words. When I showed doctors this ability they told me he appeared to be high IQ.
At age 5 he had trouble in kindergarten with coloring in the lines, his handwriting was barely legible, and his drawing ability was very poor but he was reading at a 5th grade level and his favorite book was a science encyclopedia. He could do mental math well but had difficulty writing out math problems.
We were told to homeschool because our public school because they could not offer an appropriate education. The month he turned seven he was tested by an educational psychologist. Tests showed my son was working at a 4th grade level in math, even though he used mental math to figure out the answers to most of the problems because of his handwriting issues, and reading and comprehension were at an even higher level.
At age 9 he won a spelling bee for our county.
At age 11 my son has been told by adults that he is a good conversationalist. He reads at a 12th grade level and loves classic literature, history, science and technology and psychology. He sings and acts in musical theater but has trouble learning dance routines. He speaks more like a college student but his writing looks like that of a 3rd grader so he types. He takes notes on a cell phone. He still has trouble drawing and has difficulty with jigsaw puzzles but I tell him that I never once had to draw or do jigsaw puzzles in any of the jobs I had. He takes piano but has to practice much more than the average kid because he has very little motor memory, but he compensates by using his excellent auditory memory.
The neuropsychologist says it is obvious he has a lot of general knowledge and he is verbally gifted, but he also has dyspraxia.
You can have dyspraxia and be very intelligent. You can be below average in some things and be very bright in others.
2. Dy Boyt | July 25th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Hi Dawn
My daughter is nearly half way through Year 1 and her teacher picked up that she was having problems putting her thoughts on paper. She received a D for maths last semester and her report card said she was poorly organised and has trouble completing tasks. The teacher said she thought she was very intelligent but something was stopping her from doing her work. She is starting to avoid writing.
We recently had an OT assessment and although the OT hasn’t marked everything she said she thought she probably has a mild dyspraxia (fine motor).
Looking back I am almost sure I also had dyspraxia as a child and still ‘get lost in my own head’ at times. Is it possible for adults to be tested? It would be a relief for me to know what has been dogging my footsteps all these years. I have a successful career and it hasn’t interfered too much (most of my friends and family just laugh off my ‘forgetfulness’ and inability to draw), so I’m sure my daughter will be ok as well.
Cheers
Dy
3. kate | August 16th, 2009 at 11:07 am
What is the best way to teach math to a nine year old with dyspraxia?
4. eva | January 27th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
I am with you Kate, I have expensive software and workbooks to help my daughter to learn maths, but she just isn’t interested. My question is how do you motivate a dyspraxic child to WANT to do maths and homework without bribery with sweets.
5. sarah | March 17th, 2010 at 7:12 am
hi i have a 5 year old who has problems with speech and language we have been with the s and l for a year and half and not much progress he is slow to read and write below average but fantastic at mental maths thinkin it may be dyspraxia but no one wants to help any ideas
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed