General Chat

Had Damien who is 6yr at Vranch House in Exeter for assesment they told us they did a study on 100 6yr old kids and Damien for some of the things they done he comes in the last 5 and one assesment he comes in last 15 so they are going to help him with 3hrs of therapy

Sounds like good news to me!! :O)

Hi Val it ddoes help if you can therapy early on even though my 81/2 yr old does not have dyspraxia to bad we were furtuate to push for help when 3 (mainly because he was prem and 1 of triplets) it has helped him, handwriting is still a bit of an issue and he spends more time on the floor when playing football, but we point out that tackling is part of the game, then it doesnt matter if he does spend more time on the floor!! He still gets frustrated as he says he cant run as fast as friends and that they are reluctant to pick him for games that involve this, but he does have a brilliant imagination and we praise him alot for that and so does his teacher. Hope things go well for him and it is a help that you have been able to get him assessed. Cherry

I know what you mean the kids play tig at school and Damien is always it as he can't run as fast but once they have a place they will be taking him in to the Wallaby Club on a Monday afternoon and we had to buy him special cutlery which cost £17 but if it helps I don't care about the cost

Sorry I have been at pub so just got in yes Damien is like that we had to buy special cutlery to day he used it tonight but still wanted to eat with his hands but I am glad it is recognised now but doesn't help ones they missed I mean he pulls his hand right back and pings you in the face

Hi Val, Is his speech affected by his dispraxia? My son is 19 now and at age two his speech was slow we had him assessed by a speech therapist at about three. By the time he started school he still couldn't talk. We were lucky to have a new speech unit open at a school near us, if he hadn't got a place there it was boarding at Dawn House a special school near Nottingham. We were told it might be dyspraxia although the peaditrician didn't really seem to know. They also call it clumsy syndrome. We saw 24 specialists! He use to wet the bed, pooh himself until he was about 10! He gets on ok now drives a car, went to collage for two years (gave up) now works full time. His speech is hard to understand at times but he is `normal'. Good luck Carole

Carol, Damien has no problem with his speech but is three years above him self he knows so much the only thing holding him back is his hands and feet but it gets him angry and frustrated and keeps saying the kids think he is stupid because he can't run properly

Hi Val mine is the same very bright and loves learning, he was very confident upto about a year ago when the other children in his year started to tease him more.Mine is also extremely sensitive about lots of things eg someone in his class said about him leaving home when older and he came out of class very upset, said he was not leaving home and almost begging me to let him stay when older! He also hates changes eg when going up a year in school, or daddy being away. Its this emotional side of things that i find hard to cope with. Do you do exercises with him, i try and make it fun and some of his siblings join in and if mine gets frustrated i deliberately make a mistake and say something like 'how do you do it i,m having a job doing this' and it usually brings him out of his frustration. Cherry

Hi Val Try this site, it has lots of info for you: http://www.dyspraxiafoundation(.)org(.)uk/ Apologies if you already visited the site. Vikki xx

Jim usually helps him with his exercises scrunching up paper but he gets fed up very easy as he is easy distracted, we went yesterday and bought him cutlery he used them last night but ended up using his fingers a lovely lady sent me a message with the email address of the dyspraxia foundation I went on to have a look very informative

Thanks Vicki a lovely lady called Lindy gave me the email address and I have emailed them

Hi Val, Just looked in again. Has Damien had a multi disaplinary assesment? You should be able to have this done and hopefully get some occupational therapy to help him with his cordination. Carole

I had it all done at Vranch House yesterday so we are just waiting for the report and the therapist gave him a thing for his pencil but checked to find the best one and we had to buy special cutlery as well and he is going to go once a week