Helping my son...

The principal and two of the teachers at the public school my son went to for kindergarten recommended homeschooling when my son had trouble coloring in the lines and doing other fine motor tasks but was reading at a 5th grade level and doing mental math above grade level. He was not eligible for OT in school because he was not failing. The kindergarten teacher thought he should be held back until he could color in the lines better.

When my son was born he had hypotonia. At 12 months he had a 50% delay in motor skills but was 50% ahead in receptive/expressive language skills. The doctor at the military base would not recommend therapy so my son didn't receive therapy.

At seven we finally got a referral to see a developmental pediatrician and an educational psychologist. We were told that his intelligence was more than two standard deviations above the mean but he also had developmental coordination disorder or motor dyspraxia. An OT told us he had sensory integration disorder. Our insurance would not pay for therapy for this. So again he didn't get therapy. We were told to read The Out of Sync Child Has Fun.

At 11 he developed scoliosis and he now has to sleep in a very uncomfortable brace every night for 10 hours so he is often tired now while still dealing with fine motor issues like his hands cramping after about 15 minutes of handwriting. He thinks part of his problem is the fact that the joints in the top part of his fingers are very loose and bend way back and it takes more effort for him to control the pencil. It is the same thing with a knife. We asked his physical therapist recently if there was something he could do about this problem and he just said to try to avoid bending his fingers back so far and exercise using a squeeze ball, but that doesn't fix the finger problem so we are still looking for answers.

My son does type 50 wpm both on a computer keyboard and on his iPhone and this allows him to take notes and keep up with his writing assignments, but little things like using a knife to cut steak are still a problem. I wish I knew what to do to help him.