Normal or not

[waverly]

DS is starting 2nd grade.  We have not had the IEP meeting yet.  He is very disorganized to the point that the teacher had to give him a desk map and go over it with him daily.  His handwriting is terrible but the school's OT consistently refuses to do anything about it citing that they don't worry about handwriting in K and first, I asked about 2nd grade, and they just looked at me...  He rushes his work constantly I think because writing is hard, and he doesn't want to do it.  He has the teacher convinced it is because he loves to read, but I think that is just his excuse to not want to work hard because it is hard work.  He has a history of low strength in well his whole body, but arms and hands etc.


He did PT and OT all last year from September to May.  We achieved 90% of their goals.  We still have a couple to work on, like walking she had as a goal but then never did anything with it, and OT was the last eye exercise.  Do you think I need to put him back in it?  I also think the coin swallowing that he did was related to oral sensory seeking behavior.  And motor planning was another thing we were working on.  He did sports all summer, so gross motor he is working on all the time, but the small motor not so much.  

Do you think I would need to re-start OT?  I wouldn't have thought it, but for the coin swallowing incident.  And the teacher basically saying he is disorganized and rushing (which to me is a hand strength and it is hard thing, but could be a motor planning/ time planning thing or a competitive thing).  He always hated writing since he started at 4. K and first he had a more positive attitude but still always rushed.  When I look at all the other little kids their handwriting looks a million times better.

I wonder about ADHD a little bit, but I think it makes sense to wait on that since we have the motor planning and sensory and strength things that make sense to work on first, and he is not to the point of really needing medication.  

[traveltheworld]

Is there any harm to starting OT? Would he be able to do it during school hours? Does he want to (or at least not object to it)? I guess if the answers to all those are yes, then I don't see any harm in starting OT again even if he may not absolutely need it.

[waverly]

There are some cons. The school district refuses to give him OT, so I have to do it private which means several things.

1. I have to pull him 15-30 minutes early from school, so he loses instruction time.
2. I have to take sick time off work.
3. Extra driving of a half hour that day.
4. Since it is private OT it is $$$$. The medical bills pile up fast.
5. He was excited about being discharged from OT. I haven't brought it up to him but he probably would be disappointed to go back.
6. He missed out on "Fit club" last year because of PT time conflict. I have him signed up this year. I don't know the schedule, but I would hate for it to conflict.


Eta- Are other 2nd graders as messy, disorganized and terrible writers, or is he like I suspect at the bottom of his class with this?  

[waverly]

The teacher just wrote back and said the school OT had come to her classroom (this OT loves to get out of helping DS which seems to me to be personal, but I am sure just the standards of the school, but honestly I have been asking her for help for 2 years and nada). So anyway the OT thought a behavior chart would be helpful before she has to worry about evaluating him for services (my words, not hers because I am bitter). But still the chart before the evaluation was true.  eyeroll. 


Like what do I have to do to get help when he has the worst handwriting in the class. 

[covergirl82]

I'm curious why an OT would recommend a behavior chart before an eval for a child who has had OT in the past. Seems like she's trying to get out of the eval to me. Can you call the director who oversees this for your district? If it were me, I would push for the eval (and calling the director seems like the way to go if you won't get anywhere with the OT or at the school-level).

[mommyatty]

We did private OT for handwriting with DD, but she has no other issues, so this is a different situation. I advised a friend facing the same situation NOT to do OT for handwriting. After having done it for 8 months, I talked with my BFF who is a special ed teacher. She set up a call for me with an educational psychologist she works with, who said OT at such a young age (DD was 4) was doing nothing more than telling DD every single week that she was bad at handwriting. As soon as we stopped OT, she started being more willing to draw and write and color and her handwriting is now on par with her classmates.

It sounds to me like some of these things are not OT related. Like OT isn’t going to help with organization or with swallowing stuff he isn’t supposed to. He may just rush through his stuff and lack attention to detail. I did as a child because another kid and I raced to be first to turn in our papers. Plus I’m just naturally disorganized and have to work harder at maintaining organization. So to me it sounds like a behavior chart is the right answer.

[xctsclrx]

I had terrible handwriting as a child. Multiple teachers had conferences with my parents about it. It wasn't because I couldn't do it, but I was always in a rush to get my work done. My parents had me copying from the dictionary for practice. It didn't work. Failing my spelling test and math test worked because the teacher couldn't read my writing. I started making an effort then.

[waverly]

Aug 28, 2018 13:27:34 GMT -5 covergirl82 said:

I'm curious why an OT would recommend a behavior chart before an eval for a child who has had OT in the past. Seems like she's trying to get out of the eval to me. Can you call the director who oversees this for your district? If it were me, I would push for the eval (and calling the director seems like the way to go if you won't get anywhere with the OT or at the school-level).

OT's in my district do not want to treat a child unless they are extremely poor (skill wise not money wise).  The criteria for school age is more for can't access curriculum, so for PT a child would have to physically not be able to go to gym class or fall multiple times in the hallway.  So my child just have low muscle tone would not qualify.  That being said there is some discretion among districts, so that I was told by a teacher in her district he would get OT.  Not sure if that is true, but she has been a teacher for many years.

I don't think she wants to do an eval. Evals cost the school district money.  To circumvent the evaluation cost I dropped off the private practice OT evaluation last year, and we had a meeting with the VP and his case worker (school psychologist), teacher, and OT attended and basically said no.  That private practice has a lower bar for treatment than the public school, and they won't do anything. Evals are good for 3 years or at least with speech they were.  So all she would have to do is pull the previous eval I dropped off.  

OT does help with sensory issues or which he does have oral and fine motor skills, hand strength etc and motor planning.  To me that is all things that can lead to poor handwriting, swallowing weird objects that he put in his mouth for sensory reasons, and motor planning or planning in general perhaps can lead to disorganization.  The kids all sounds very similar when I go to sensory or developmental coordination disorder forums.  He is not formally diagnosed as it is all on the milder side. 

I suppose I could call the student coordinator for special needs, district wise, but I am fairly sure that if the VP and OT and case worker and teacher are all saying no, then she would as well.  It's not necessarily a battle I want to have every year since like I said I have been asking for the last two years.  

[waverly]

I can fight for public OT, but I will probably end up back with the private OT which leads me back to my original question or should I pursue private OT again?  I guess I could wait and see if the behavior chart works first.  I posted this question first before the additional teacher's email saying the behavior chart was at the direction of the OT. The teacher originally made it sound like it was her idea.  

[xctsclrx]

waverly, I think that has to be up to you. Maybe see how the first quarter or two goes and tell him that if his handwriting doesn't improve he will have to go back to OT and maybe that will be a motivational thing to see if it is really needed. I don't understand how the disorganization plays into this, but I don't have any experience either.

[2chatter]

I’d go for OT for oral and fine motor but NOT handwriting. That might also open up weekends.

As a parent who just blew up and copied the world because my child’s 504 was not being honored - and I gave them a week - consider what the next step is. In thirty minutes after I copied the world the issues were resolved. By 3 PM today teachers and my student had all been communicated to. So also, don’t be afraid to pull rank if they aren’t meeting his needs. I have learned not to play. I give them a chance, I follow up, I am patient. Then I line it all out and escalate.

[vasc]

Can the OT just see your DS at intervention level? Not full IEP level, but make recommendations?

I had a student last year who was in second grade and basically writing hieroglyphics. He already had an IEP for speech and therefore the OT picked him up as a related service. She felt his handwriting was clinically significantly poor enough.

I'd say that as a society handwriting is going down the drain. Print is taught but the kids switch out pencils for keyboard too quickly. Cursive is never taught. I know plenty of upper elementary kids who fail to use proper letter formation much less follow conventions for writing on paper (stay within lines, write on correct side of paper, start at red vertical line, etc).

The curriculum my school's OT uses is Handwriting Without Tears. There's an app you can use to teach letter formation. How's his grip?

[orval]

My ds has DCD or dyspraxia. This also is comorbid with dysgraphia and dyscalculia for my DS. It does sound like DCD alot to me. I know a lot of people go to a neuropsych or a developmental pedi to get a diagnosis. We just have gone to OT (for 3 years straight). My ds has sensory issues as well.

We are in private school, but he was able to use a laptop in 5th grade. They learned cursive in 3rd and that is much easier for him. The bigger issue with dysgraphia is written expression. He struggles to write good, strong sentences and think of what to write.

I would insist on a school evaluation. I am not an expert but I think they have to do one if you request. Visit the special needs board. They have a lot of knowledge on this.

[mustardseed2007]

Request it in writing. You can get more done when the request is in writing than when you request it verbally. I don't know all the in's and outs on getting school evals because we've done all of ours private, but you get lots of great benefits from making the school do it.

[waverly]

vasc, I think that is what the OT was doing. The teacher called her in and said hey look at these 5 students (or whatever number), and so she did a non IEP recommendation for the behavior chart.

I did just remember that his private OT had recommended the pencil grips, so I found some from last year and sent them. It seemed like his writing was better last year, so that could have been the difference as well as the summer slide.


I am part of the special needs board, and we have had lots of discussions about DS The good problem is his issues are pretty mild, so it makes it harder for diagnosis and evals. It seems like every medical professional has a different opinion on him based on their own personal education or experiences. I tend to go more for the private practice for evals because I have been told that private OT and PT are better than school based because they have their own gym etc in terms of service anyway. A school OT would be more helpful from a on site, communicate with teachers point of view.


I am a bit torn on the whole psych eval. I guess the information isn't clear enough on whether he really needs one. I am not sure the school psychologist would be great at evaluating him, not am I sure that I want to spend $$$$ on private practice just to come back to him needing OT anyway. Although they might have a couple of other good ideas. I am just not sure if I am there yet. I think we might get there eventually because what we might see is that all his peers start excelling in organization and writing and he is several grade levels behind perhaps... But right now, I have been consistently told by the teachers (who might have the agenda of not providing OT services, that he is on level). So the 2nd grade teacher immediately implementing a plan is telling me that perhaps he is not on level. It is not formal, but I believe she has put him on a response to intervention plan.

[2chatter]

Or maybe that’s a good sign waverly? I think there are kids who don’t need services who do need intervention. Those kids are considered in the range of normal. DD was referred to handwriting specialists but we didn’t do it - it was optional and she’s on the very low end of normal. The school did pencil grips and coaching. She’s in fifth and her papers will be typed this year and going forward, which is a relief to me. A friend’s daughter goes to tutorials for organization - the teacher helps her figure out her desk and planner and assignments. She did that in third and fourth.

Maybe the net here is he’s on level, but needs help, and you can let it go for now and see how he does? I’m always nervous but it worked with DD.

Other than the oral stuff, because the school is unlikely to address that unless it’s disruptive.