Slouching while writing

[MistyMountain]

Lately ds has been slumping over on his side on the table or laying on me while doing some of his writing. Is this something that has happen to others with dysgraphia? It seems like he actually having difficulty writing and staying up when he is doing this. He does not have strength or stamina issues in other areas.

Edited February 18, 2017 by MistyMountain

[PeterPan]

retained reflexes

core strength 

vision

 

Or a combination.

[MistyMountain]

We are doing exercises for retained reflexes. He did have some. He will be screened to see if he needs a full COVD evaluation. He had one few years ago and they said he was ok but they test more for older kids I think. He could have a weak core I guess. He does not seem weak overall but I just read a signs of a weak core and he does have stuff from the list. We just signed up for martial arts and they do a lot of exercises that seem to work those muscles so maybe that will help. Maybe I can add some YouTube exercise videos for the days they do not have it.

Edited February 18, 2017 by MistyMountain

[Heathermomster]

My DS did this and was corrected by the ped PT. DS completed exercises for retained relexes, posture, agility, and strength. He sits properly now after years of slumping and stretching out. When he couldn't slump, he'd stretch his legs way out.

[Lecka]

My son did this too.

 

But he didn't stretch his legs out, it was more that he would slump over and want to bounce back and forth. (Edit -- he does/did things like gets on his knees, slump over the writing surface, then rock on his knees while keeping his elbows on the table most of the time.)

 

I got an explanation that was more along the lines of -- he was sensory seeking and self-regulating the sensory seeking to help him focus. So he was helping himself to focus.

 

He has done retained reflex stuff too, and he has also gotten older. Most of his sensory seeking type things went away before he did the retained reflex stuff. But then he still had some. He also can have nervous energy if he is getting nervous which can definitely happen with school work (this is much better now and I would limit handwriting if he is anxious).

 

Something else that helped was using slant board. I didn't buy one, but used a binder turned sideways. If paper slides tape it down. I think real slant boards have a way to hold the paper still.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Lecka

[Targhee]

Core strength - trunk muscles. Also shoulder muscles. Work on these

[kbutton]

Very typical. The others have mentioned good ideas, but I want to bring up one more thing. Not necessarily for you since your DC has this problem only with writing, but others may read this and find it helpful.

 

We have had a lot of the dysgraphia, reflex, coordination, vision, motor issues with speech and feeding, etc. stuff, and in our case, the common denominator is a connective tissue disorder. All of those other things are real, and they do respond to therapy (eventually), but they are present, in our case, directly because of the connective tissue problems.

 

There are some threads somewhere about connective tissue stuff, but not usually in this particular context. There is a group about Ehlers-Danlos, but it's not getting much traffic. I think the people in that boat all communicate via PM. 

 

I wanted to throw that out there because connective tissue stuff, while usually benign (not always), can make all this stuff worse or less resistant to long-term fixes. We have benefited greatly from therapies, but we also realize it's a "long haul" issue, and some things will never be great. (Don't read that and freak if you are thinking this might be your kid--many people with connective tissue disorders don't have coordination issues at all or to this extent--they can be an advantage sometimes in athletics.) 

 

There are some additional risk factors sometimes for some kinds of connective tissue disorders (ranging from easy injury to blood vessel and heart problems).

 

Anyway, if you are a parent who finds that things always circle back to motor issues, but yet your child might not qualify for a developmental coordination disorder (dyspraxia) diagnosis (or even if they do), you might want to think connective tissue stuff. "If you can't connect the issues, think connective tissues." Ehlers-Danlos is the most common type, I believe, but there are many kinds. 

[MistyMountain]

My youngest dd actually does have a lot of the issues you mention but her joints are not at all loose and she does not have the skin issues it describes. I did not realize what Ehlers-Danlos or that it was related to those issues was until you mentioned it. So it is very useful to look it up and see if you see those kind of issues.

Edited February 25, 2017 by MistyMountain