11 y.o boy with Gross Motor Issues - Please help!

You should be looking for an evaluation by an occupational therapist rather than a physical therapist. Also consider an evaluation by a developmental opthamologist. This is not the same thing as a regular eye doctor and involves much more than assessing visual acuity. Sometimes vision issues cause motor problems. You may want to do some reading on Developmental Coordination Disorder (also called dyspraxia).

I would speak up at school as all kids are not talented athletically and gym needs to fit all kids in and not make fun of them; however if he’s not talented in gym, he won’t get an A; just as most kids aren’t in gifted academic classes and don’t get A’s in academics. Every child has strengths and weaknesses, and sports may be your son’s challenge. I have 2 middle school boys, neither particularly great at sports or even great in gym class, but they get with the program, and ride bikes, swim and roller skate which are more “life skills” than gym class activities. I doubt that your MD will discover a neuro/medical reason for poor motor skills in gym, in light of his stellar performance in academics. By age 11-12 I am not sure PT would help him gain as much as say martial arts, tennis camp, bike riding, etc. Concentrate on fitness and forget the A in gym.

My son is clearly LD so we aren’t in the same ball park as your son but one therapy we did that helped coordination was Interactive Metronome. It was developed originally to help with coordination and was found to have a relationship to learning. Some of the private school football teams here put their kids through it. At a number of parochial schools in my area, it is offerred to kids because it helps improve academics as well as coordination.

I wouldn’t bother with an evaluation if you have a child who is excelling in all academics.

Beth

I too was one of those uncoordinated smart kids. I still can’t hit a baseball without counting because I would always swing too early. Swimming is something he could do in a program after school to build his confidence and when he is in high school he could take that for his PE.
One of my friends who is a PE/Special Education teacher told me once that water is a great equalizer for kids and swimming is something that is relaxing and good exercise too.

My daughter is a good swimmer and water polo player which has opened up a whole new world for her because of her difficulties in academics. In the school district I work kids don’t get OT unless they have an IEP for another service, like Speech or RSP. I don’t know why it is set up like that either.

It really sounds like your son is being discriminated against by the PE coach. In middle school grades don’t count like they would in high school but nevertheless his self esteem is taking an undeserved beating.

I would again speak with the PE teacher and get a grip on what the kids are being graded on

My kids often have written tests in PE-the rules of basketball for example

I always thought this was a way to even things out

Is he actively trying his best? I mean, has he given up to the point he is uncooperative? Is there any kind of extra credit he could do? I’ve taken kids out of school for family vacations and when they get their work ahead, PE is something like ‘exercise for 15 min” Could he get credit for participating in karate or gymnastics outside of school and documenting it

The PE teacher obviously isnt going to back down totally but maybe, if he realizes you and your son really want to improve things, he will come up with some ways to improve that grade a little

But I agree-if he is performing like a D, the most you should look for is working it up to a C

I would get an occupational therapy evaluation and look into Interactive Metronome (good for development of motor planning).

A developmental vision evaluation is a good idea also, although usually problems in this area interfere with reading. See http://www.covd.org to find developmental optometrists in your area. (These are much easier to find than developmental opthalmologists, which are very rare birds!)

Would a transfer to another school be feasible? Sounds drastic, but the indifference of the principal is disturbing. Sounds like staying at this school is going to assure further disappointments and humiliations that might be avoided with a transfer.

Nancy

I can fully appreciate being less than atheletic; the few times I played sports in school I mostly sat the bench. I wasn’t exactly clumsy, just not very good at them, always on the short side of scrawny, etc. I know how hard it can be on a young male to be ostracized from the herd for not measuring up.

I do think that getting a bad grade in gym can have its merits however. If your boy is used to getting A’s with little effort, it can be educational to have a subject that he does not skate thru. And as I recall (perhaps it is different now) Health accounted for a portion of your Phys Ed grade, which will allow him to bring a D up a bit.

By all means I think you should talk to specialists to see if his coordination challenges can be remediated, but in case he is just always going to have 2 left feet you might let him know it is not the end of the world, and I am sure there are things he can do which will allow him to secure a few friends. Does he like music?

you might also tell him that nerdy clumsy boys who get very good grades turn into college graduates who get really good jobs and make buckets of money, and will very likely be the boss of a bunch of average high school jocks who barely made it through school. ;)

PS: Chess is a very good game, perhaps not a sport, but I would encourage him to continue to play it. Yahoo has a good online game center (free) with some very good players from around the world. It takes a very complex mind to consistantly win at chess.

I’m with patti here, I was also one of those bright clumsy students. In my case this was compounded by the fact that I was *refused* glasses — could not get anyone to recognize severe astigmatism and amblyopia yet — until my last year of high school, too late to do much good in school. I couldn’t do a thing with volleyball and basketball which were pretty much all the gym teachers recognized as sports.

The idea of written tests in PE — well, there are lots of parents fighting actively *against* this, in particular parents of LD kids, because their kids are weak in academic areas and they see PE as one of the few places where those kids can shine. A difficult issue.

In some of my schools, PE wasn’t considered an academic subject so it wasn’t included in determinations for the honour roll. In others, the honour roll was based on a numerical grade average, not on the number of A’s, so good grades in everything else could bring up the average. Both seem to me more sensible approaches than having the honour roll based solely on having all A’s without consideration of what those A’s represent. This is something to discuss with your school board as a policy issue. The teacher and even the principal can’t do much, but a minor policy change effected by the board can help a lot of kids.

In a lot of senior high schools now, PE is divided into mini-sessions where the students have at least some choice of different sports; or sometimes the PE requirement can be made up by membership in a team, say for example the swim team. Look into your senior high classes and plan ahead; if there is a limittion of how many kids can get into certain activities it might be good to get into his IEP that he can do sports that are less of a trial to him, such as swimming rather than basketball etc.

A really good visual evaluation is an excellent idea — see if you can get a reference to a developmental optometrist with a good track record (from what I read, this field is still a mix of art and science, and various practitioners have very different success rates.) And get a real ophthalmologist, not just the local optician, to look at the need for glasses. I can speak from experience that getting those non-obvious eye problems treated can make a huge difference — not, unfortunately overnight, but with time and work, definitely worth the effort.

If you can afford it or can get an insurance referral, why not go for OT and PT evaluations? You may find something subtle but treatable there, and if not, at least you will know you have tried and not missed something you could do.

I like the idea of Interactive Metronome. It sounds like the kind of practice that helped me a lot over the years.

In my case, I took up a lot of sports that did not require chasing balls in 3D, something I have no hope of ever doing. Bicycling, swimming, downhill skiing (took years to learn but worth it), curling, trampoline, and even a little soccer in non-competitive leagues.
The punch-line to this is that even while I was doing all of these, my gym teacher told me I was “un-athletic”!! Luckily I was mature enough by that time to realize she was completely unaware of the real world; while all my “athletic” classmates quit basketball and most sports as soon as they left high school, I’m still out there on top of Mont Tremblant. If you can teach your son to ignore the closed little world of the high school competition and get him involved in a few sports where he can have fun even if he will never be a star, it will be better for his health in all ways.

[quote]If your boy is used to getting A’s with little effort, it can be educational to have a subject that he does not skate thru. [/quote]

My son does not skate through any of his academic classes. He works extremely hard, usually doing homework till bedtime. My husband is put off by the amount of work he does and feels it even hampers his ability to have a social life that much more. I disagree for the time being because he seems to like it, does not complain and it builds his self esteem to have something he is suceeding at.

Maybe I need to give a little more info:
I think my son is a little more than clumsy. He is very tall, with poor posture. He has broken a bone almost every year of his life since the age of 5 (mostly from falling and one time in trying to ride his bike - which he also can’t really do). I have spoken to the pediatric orthopdic about the possibility of weak bones, but he says no. He also has beginning stages of scoliosis. He can’t walk up and down stairs like you and I do.. he walks them one at a time, like a little kid. He is developing a nervous blinking problem that has been going on for almost a year now. His handwriting is horrible, but now that he is in middle school that doesn’t matter as much b/c they use the computer a lot. He has trouble doing things like brushing his hair, he does it like you or I would do if you were using the wrong hand (left instead of right). Most times he just asks me to do it. He doesn’t have a lot of strength in his extremities and can’t lift things my younger son can.

[quote]In some of my schools, PE wasn’t considered an academic subject so it wasn’t included in determinations for the honour roll. …This is something to discuss with your school board as a policy issue. [/quote]

That is exactly what I was thinking. I know a lot of Physical Education guidelines are created at the Federal and State level, so I am not sure if the fact that it IS included in calculating the GPA is a town thing or a state thing. In grammar school in our town they are graded Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory and Outstanding. When they get to Middle school it changes to the A-F policy. I wish it wouldn’t.

I’ll write more in a little while. Have to go now.

D

Unable to ride a bike may be balance and vestibular issues — this should be checked. The weakness in the extremities and scoliosis would really concern me — it could be something else serious, or it could be the result of not exercising due to vestibular issues. Either way, I hope you are pestering the medical community hard; this does not sound like wait and see issues.

You may also wish to consider an evaluation for possible LD, especially nonverbal learning disability or Asperger’s syndrome. Clumsiness and poor social skills often occur in children with NLD or Asperger’s. Many Aspies are unusually tall. Of course, there are many factors that go into a diagnosis of these conditions and these are just my own thoughts. Don’t take them as gospel.

Some children with LDs, especially really intelligent children, are able to compensate very well and go undiagnosed for a long time. Does your son have any difficulties with handwriting? How are his math skills? Does he have any issues with keeping himself organized? Are there any aspects of school that require extra effort from him? Does he have any problem with understanding word play type jokes or is he very literal? I don’t want to alarm you or even suggest that I know whether your child has any kind of LD. It is just that what you write is potentially suggestive of that kind of problem and you may want to consider seeking further professional advice.

Yes, this does sound like more than simple clumsiness

So how far does the apple fall from the tree?

Two of my three sons have the same posture you describe-I am drawn to the fact that they walk and stand exactly like my brother who lives in another state and rarely sees them(IOW, I dont think were talking learned posture here)

They are not as impaired as your son but I do remember having to instruct them to alternate their feet on stairs well past the typical age. It has been a strain getting the youngest(13)to hold utensils properly-he eats like a convict in a bad movie.

My oldest was evaluated for Marfans syndrome in high school. Long extremities, wing span greater than height, elongated second toe, sunken chest and a heart murmur

Thankfully, he was cleared but needed to be followed by a cardiologist for 2 years.

My youngest has had Aspergers suggested and brothers oldest? WEll, if they hadnt homeschooled and lived in the woods away from society I have NO doubt he would have the dx(yeah, in the woods-like I said, theres always the apple and the tree thing, ya know)

So, yes, your description brings all sorts of things to mind and it wouldnt hurt to do some further investigation, if only with your search engine

Definitely talk to your dr if you think Marfans might apply-its something you would need to know about

I originally was going to suggest martial arts, but with your son’s history of broken bones, that might not be a good idea. He probably should start out with occupational therapy (OT) and maybe vision therapy

Has your son been on any medication that might cause bone weakness? You might want to consider bone density testing to make sure there are no problems.

What you’ve described sounds like motor planning difficulties (this is part of Sensory Integration Dysfunction). A good OT should be able to help with this.

And eventually, martial arts may be something for the future.