#write interventions

[writeinterventions-blog]

Dyspraxia; what is it and how do Occupational Therapists help it?

Clumsy.

Accident prone.

Klutz.

Too big for her body.

Poor Coordination.

These are all terms you might have heard to describe a child who has dyspraxia, which is a developmental coordination disorder.  It is the partial loss (as opposed to complete inability) to coordinate and perform motor tasks.

Tasks like handwriting, using scissors, throwing and catching a ball, hopping, running and jumping, riding a two wheeled bike, and self care tasks like getting dressed and brushing teeth are the sort of things that can be impacted.

With dyspraxia, the underlying motor and sensory systems are intact, and the cause of the motor coordination problem is largely unknown.  It can be associated with delays in development or acquired as in brain injury, including stroke.

Dyspraxia is more common in boys than girls and is estimated that 1 in 30 people may have it. 

Occupational therapists typically address this from a motor planning perspective.  Occupational therapists are experts at setting up therapy activities that ensure children succeed in the task at hand.

Once a child experiences success with a certain task, a positive feedback loop is formed, an then that motor plan is repeated so that it can become automated, without poor coordination being in the picture, or at least in a much reduced way.

Coming up: a look at Dysgraphia

Photo credit: D. Sharon Pruitt  Pink Sherbet Photography

[writeinterventions-blog]

Help with handwriting over video call

Help with handwriting over video call

Several people have asked me about the video call aspect of Write Interventions.  What can I say?

It's really fun.

I can do the work I love from home.

There's a learning curve, and I did a lot of working out the kinks in terms of what works well with video call.  There's lots of blue stuff in my skype studio because blue works well over skype.

Kids do the funniest things when if front of the web cam.  My clients whom I video call with are already used to using this media.  Even the kids are used to it.  So you can imagine the kids hamming it up!  The hardest part, really, is not to lol while they are being totally cute and funny.

The great part is that the parents play an important role during the entire process; they have a real "hands on" experience of guiding their child through the tasks that I ask them to do.  Obviously if a child is being seen by me, then they are struggling in some way.

My friend Aiden who is 5 1/2 and heading into Kindergarten in the fall was having a hard time with writing.  He has been in an academic preschool for two years.  In the first skype consultation I soon learned that he had a very immature pencil grasp, thus poor pencil control.  He couldn't write much beyond his name.  He had all 4 of my favorite pencil grippers (mailed ahead of time) and I found the right one for him right away and we proceeded with the consultation.  I could see the look of relief on his mom's face just with that part taken care of.  It turns out that he didn't know has alphabet very well and made mistakes reciting it.  Next was cutting with scissors.  Aiden could cut along a straight line, but couldn't cut out a circle.  He had difficulty loading (holding) scissors and when he really struggled and became frustrated with that we moved him on to the next task. Aiden completed the VMI ( a standardized test looking at eye hand coordination) and I was able to score it on the spot and share with his mom that Aiden would not have qualified for school-based services.  He did, however, need some fine motor skills help and handwriting help.  His mom purchased my Fine Motor Skills kit and My Alphabet Book and I mailed her a good cutting skills book that I use a lot.  We booked a session for a week away so I could show Aiden exactly how I wanted him to use the fine motor activities and the alphabet book.

We booked a follow up session a month later to give Aiden enough time to work on all the activities.  I called mom at the 3 week mark to see how he was doing.  I didn't really think he needed another session after his mom told me how great Aiden was doing.  But she insisted, because she wanted me to see for myself that he was doing all those things that were so hard for him in the beginning.

So this time when we did the video call, he was acting like the teacher, and I got to see how well he was doing!  He was even finishing the blank pages in My Alphabet Book (not copying). 

Big smiles all around, and best of all, Aiden is ready for Kindergarten in the fall.

And they pay me to do that!