Thanks for your reply, PeterPan! We do have a lot going on, I agree. Where we are at is: we've spent a year doing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy with a psychologist to address the fall out of some pretty savage bullying he endured at school. We're homeschooling now because there are no other safe options for him where we live. His psychologist has ended the year with a suggestion we seek further evaluation to understand how his brain is working: we'll go back to his physician for a referral, and his psychologist adds to the referral as well. So we'll be pursuing that this year, but waiting lists are very long where we are: we'll probably end up at a specialist within the hospital system eventually (I hope), but a private specialist will probably be where we'll get in earliest. I know it will be expensive, but that's what being a parent is about in the end, I guess. The lengthy delays we're facing are one of the reasons I was really interested in the work you're doing independently: at this point I'm happy to try ANYTHING that might help us a bit. I have found some scattered OT resources to address retained reflexes, but I was wondering where you've found the most useful information?

Hi PeterPan, I was fascinated to read your first post. I have a nine year-old who mouths a lot of what he says again after he's said it aloud: to me it seems like he's savouring the words or replaying the language for himself, but I've not spoken to him about it so it may not be something he's aware of or choosing to do. I've begun noticing it a lot in the last six months. I've never come across anyone who's even mentioned this before. He also has extreme meltdowns when it comes to handwriting activities that are sentence length. So, fill one word in a gap is okay, circle a word in a wordsearch is fine. Answer a question about a short piece of writing in a sentence = refusal and real distress. We do handwriting practice and he is fine for one page copying letters and words. However, if he is writes in his journal (our informal writing activity in which writing ideas is the goal, no comment on spelling or punctuation by me is ever given) his handwriting is all over the place - letters are different sizes, capitals pop up in the middle of words, punctuation is missing, he never starts at the start of a line. Interestingly, he is really motivated to learn to write in cursive in his handwriting book, but he always prints when writing in any other subject. I started considering retained reflexes because his gait when he runs is more of a gallop (lead leg goes first, second leg comes up to first leg but not past, lead leg goes again) and he tippy toes around enough that I notice it, but he does not always walk or run on his tippy toes. Obviously I don't know much, but I'm really interested to ask you about your experiences. Sounds like you went to the professionals for a diagnosis? I notice that you've independently decided to go ahead - were there particular resources that gave you the courage to do it yourself, or was it the needs of your child that were really the most motivating factor? Thanks for your time - obviously I'm a bit of a newbie here!

And now The Industrial Revolution... is in my wishlist, too! Glad my suggestion was helpful 😊. I was thinking afterwards that it would be interesting to read an abridged novel, short story or poem that was published at the time with each topic that you cover - maybe texts that were written for children of the age. Interesting to see the difference in the treatment of middle class vs working class children, especially in the industrial revolution!

Hi Melissa, The above comments made me think of A Child Through Time by Philip Wilkinson published by Dorling Kindersley c.2017. You could do a simple activity for each child, or more if the twins get interested. Some ideas you could do from a child's perspective: make a meal that one of the children would have eaten make a paper doll and dress it in the appropriate clothes for the time make a floorplan or decorate a cardboard box as a miniature house to show how a family home has changed role play a visit from the doctor to show how the treatment of illness has changed you could make a cardboard gas mask, a ration card, a label for an evacuee, for WW2 (not sure if this is the right time frame) could you print out money from the era and find out how much groceries cost and play shops? use some slang expressions from the era write a letter to them from a child in a particular era, then they could write back (you could scribe for them) about how things are different/similar now find/draw a photo of a family in another era and contrast it with a photo of your family now what work would they have liked to do in the past? - maybe apprentice them out to some of the new professions that were created play some music children might have heard at the time Usborne also has a sticker book called Houses through Time and it contains some houses from this era. Are you looking more at the world or are you planning on featuring Australian history wherever you can?