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Sally44

Movement/Brain integration therapies

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My son has dyslexia/dyscalculia/dysgraphia, problems with working memory and cannot multi task. He cannot ride a bike, but he can balance on a scooter. He is more clumsy than his peers, but does not have anything as obvious as dyspraxia - but I believe he has motor planning problems and definately cannot do more than one thing at a time. Yesterday in swimming class he had to be rescued because he could not swim and adjust his goggles at the same time and sank under the water! So I think I need to find something to help with this area. And this wasn't a case of him just not being a good enough swimmer. I know that if he was using his hands to adjust his goggles, he would not have been able to co-ordinate and kick his feet at the same time. He was also appear deaf as the instructor was shouting at him to SWIM.

He does have alot of sensory issues and I know he would need to know his goggles and nose clip were in place and working before he attempted to swim.

These all are symptoms mentioned as benefitting from therapies such as Dore.

Has anyone done any of these type of daily exercises and did they help?

I am also wondering if our own OT can put together a programme.

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Hi Sally

 

We decided against Dore, partly because of the expense and also because the assessment centre was difficult for us to get to. Instead we tried Learning Breakthrough, http://www.learningbreakthrough.com/ which was just as well, because when we started 2 years ago ds (then 9) was well below baseline at all the skills. He couldn't throw and catch a beanbag or bounce and catch a ball - at all and would have been strongly averse to anything he felt he would fail at. Because you get the kit, a CD and an instruction book, you can tailor the programme to your child, so we haven't had to coerce him into doing it and he has enjoyed it. The biggest benefit has been that he has noticed a significant, measurable improvement with practice, and this has made a huge difference to his self-esteem because he has grown up thinking he is very poor at all motor skills.

 

I can't honestly say it has made any difference to his fine-grained skills in terms of reading, spelling, handwriting, maths, multi-tasking or working memory. These have improved but I don't know if that's because of the exercises or not. Having said that we haven't yet reached the point where we are actually following the programme exactly as instructed, because until recently that has been impossible for him. I'm sure most of his problems stem from poor vestibular function and so any exercises providing vestibular activation would be useful.

 

Our OTs have been very supportive and have given us lots of information, but we never managed to get a tailored programme out of them. Good luck with yours!

 

Sue

 

 

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