Help me understand my 4 year old

amother

Green

Tue, Jan 29 2019, 11:35 am

You wanted your child to throw something out. That means he has to understand the idea, figure out that he needs to take it and walk over to the wastebasket, put it into the bin. Those are multiple steps involving receiving the language of your request, figuring out a plan of action, getting his body to do the task.

Look, it sounds like you have or have had more than one therapist work with you on your child's issues. This question isn't stemming from lack of awareness on your part. So your stated story that you tried to get him to do it for an hour sounds bizarre. You seem familiar with your child's difficulties so I'm not sure why you wouldn't ask his therapists for ideas and tips to work on at home. Whatever, my feeling is this is degenerating into weirdness, so I'm outta here.

amother

Fuchsia

Tue, Jan 29 2019, 12:55 pm

green amother you were initially very nice. you dont know me at all. yet you say what im saying is weird. instead of trying to help you add in insulting comments. do you even have any idea what my life is like with so many other issues and different children with issues. all I needed was someone to be insulting instead of being understanding. if you dont want to help you could have ignored but insulting and saying this is weird is pouring salt on my wounds.

you copied and pasted to bring all of the info about praxis. yes my dd works with different therapists. obviously im still confused. duh.... why would I come and spend precious time writing and clarifying? does it occur to you im clueless. and I dont get the scope of her diagnosis? obviously not. what a shame. whatever, I got help from everyone else here and they were kind and helpful except for you. now I go and take care of my other children who have diagnosis you wouldnt want on yourself. stop being judgemental. it wont serve you well in life.

amother

Cerulean

Tue, Jan 29 2019, 1:17 pm

Assuming this is all a type of apraxia (which I think it is), it means she has difficulty with motor planning. Like mentioned above, there are many complicated steps involved in even a simple action. If everything’s working properly, you don’t even think through the steps - you just do them. But for your daughter, there’s a breakdown in communication between her brain and her body.

She has to notice the cup. She has to think about what to do with it. And then she has to send a message to her body to move her arms and legs and perform the action. So while you think it’s a simple thing to do, her brain is stuck somewhere and not sending the right message.

As I mentioned previously, giving her a lecture or a test won’t help, because she has this planning disorder. Her language delays make it difficult to understand your questions and answer them. Please try to put yourself in your daughter’s place and understand how frustrating and confusing these simple tasks are. Try to make things easier for her.

I don’t have advice on the OT part (not my field), but see my tips above related to language. And definitely speak to your daughter’s therapists for more advice and explanations. They know her better than we do. If you don’t understand what they tell you, let them know. It’s important for you to understand what’s happening with your daughter.

Hatzlocha.