Last week, we took Obadiah to the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth, for two days of testing. Our goal was to find out what was causing his speech delay. He left there with a diagnosis of multiple areas of motor planning difficulties involving oromotor, verbal complexity and fine motor skills. The root of his problem and the main diagnosis is
dyspraxia. There are three types of dyspraxia in children; oral, verbal, and motor. Obie has oral and verbal dyspraxia. He also has a fine motor delay and
hypotonicity. In the US, doctors and speech therapists still call it apraxia, and in the UK and Australia they will refer to it as dyspraxia (just in case you google it). Dyspraxia will always be a part of who Obadiah is. He will continue to receive speech and language therapy and begin functional occupational therapy soon. Joel and I are very pleased with his diagnosis and are in full agreement. We feel this diagnosis will help us to better meet our son's needs. He is a precious and unique gift from God. We are truly blessed.
Fun facts about Dyspraxia:
- Dyspraxia or Apraxia use to be called Clumsy Child Syndrome. We decided to bring it back.
- Daniel Radcliffe (aka. Harry Potter) has dyspraxia.
