A dilemma (long)

[Guest guest]

I have written in the past about my son who was diagnosed and treated

for OCD. He is now off meds and doing okay or at least better than he

was on meds. He has been to another psychiatric group for a second

opinion and this odctor says he has separation anxiety disorder and

generalized anxiety disorder with some OCD features. I only know how

he suffers and haven't made up my mind about what is causing it.

He is going through a child study team eval which will include a

nurodevelopmental eval (his last eval was 3 1/2 yrs ago). So far it

looks as though he has some math issues, dysgraphia (has been treated

in the past for this), some degree of dyspraxia (coordination and low

muscle tone), mild sensory integration dysfunction (has had this

diagnosis in the past) aside from the other psychological issues.

I read up on dyspraxia because I knew that it could have more than

sensory and motor planning issues including psychological ones. I was

shocked to read that my son has almost all of these symptoms. When

practitioners hear dyspraxia, the first thing that they ask is about

and consider is his speech. His speech was not delayed although there

were some pronounciation errors that he made a little longer than he

should have, but you don't have to have verbal dyspraxia to have

dyspraxia.

If my son still is struggling with dyspraxia and much of his behavior

and presentation can be explained by this, I wonder if I have been

approaching his care wrong all along? If so, I am not sure what the

right approach is and I am not sure who can tell me this.

At this point I am looking into a CBT therapist (ours just hasn't cut

the mustard and gives us no homework, ect...). Also, I want to have

him join a social skills group as he struggles with socializing

(making friends, starting conversation) a lot. I may also start the

OT up again (hopefully this can be done in school). And if he needs

math help, he will get that too. I worry about the lack of

coordination in his care. His psychological help will occur outside

the school and so far despite my providing all of the old and new

reports that he has, I don't think that they are being considered when

they treat him.

My point in bringing this up is that there may be some of you out

there who see some of the sme things, but others haven't put it all

together and your child may be getting a less comprehensive approach

to their care. I also would be interested to know, if there are kids

out there with issues similar to my son's, how the school is

addressing your issues and does your therapist keep these things in

mind?

Bonnie