As an educator, please talk to your doctor. Push and ask explicitly if a referral to a developmental ped or neuropsychologist would be appropriate. In the mean time, be forthright with your child’s teacher. Mention to him or her what you said here and ask whether similar behaviors are manifesting at school.

The refusal to write is a bad bellwether for progress at school. I’ve taught a bunch of kids with similar behavior patterns. They tend to avoid writing for years and then fall behind in skills.

Anonymous wrote:How is his reading?

He could definitely have dysgraphia.

+1. Could be any number of things. OP, you need a thorough neuropsych work up. Ask your pediatrician for a referral.

I am not seeing the issue with handwriting? When ds was just shy of 7, he was starting first grade and I don’t think anyone was asking them to write more than a couple words at a time? Why are you asking him to write whole stories? It sounds like you may be a very academic focused family and are expecting too much from a 6 year old boy. Or maybe I’m wrong.

Doesn’t sound like adhd. Early grades are tough for younger boys. I would just keep any eye on it.

Fine motor control issues?

This description does not sound ADHD.

Are you able to get him tested?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When was he last tested for speech, and did he score average for both expressive and recessive? If so, why is he still in speech? Articulation only?

My child with speech needs started with only an expressive delay, but as her expressive speech caught up, she had recessive delays emerge. Is it possible there are issues with his recessive language now that he is expected to understand more?

Thanks! He was tested 1 year ago and had articulation issue with the “s”. Puts his tongue in between his teeth. He worked on that for a bit and still does, but I don’t see much progress. It was a small issue in my opinion. His speech therapist is spending most of the time on vocabulary, recalling details, irregular verbs, categories, etc.

Have you talked to the SLP about these issues you posted here, by any chance? It sounds like the SLP is noticing some weaknesses that might be related to language processing and organization. I wonder if they might have some insight on whether a speech issue could be contributing to the issues your child is having in story writing and listening in a group.

At the least, since you already have an SLP who knows your son well, it might make sense to rule this out before looking into any other type of evaluation.

I did talk about it with her a while back and she mentioned that memory games or recalling details should help. I started having him telling me simple made up stories and correcting him when what he says does not make sense or is not on topic… hoping this will help. It seems to me the problem is in organizing his thoughts. Could also be behavioral since he hates writing and gets stressed when he has to do it at school. He does better with telling made up stories, but still sometimes don’t make a lot of sense.

Anonymous wrote:How is his reading?

He could definitely have dysgraphia.

Thank you. He reads really well and picked it up easily

How is his reading?

He could definitely have dysgraphia.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When was he last tested for speech, and did he score average for both expressive and recessive? If so, why is he still in speech? Articulation only?

My child with speech needs started with only an expressive delay, but as her expressive speech caught up, she had recessive delays emerge. Is it possible there are issues with his recessive language now that he is expected to understand more?

Thanks! He was tested 1 year ago and had articulation issue with the “s”. Puts his tongue in between his teeth. He worked on that for a bit and still does, but I don’t see much progress. It was a small issue in my opinion. His speech therapist is spending most of the time on vocabulary, recalling details, irregular verbs, categories, etc.

Have you talked to the SLP about these issues you posted here, by any chance? It sounds like the SLP is noticing some weaknesses that might be related to language processing and organization. I wonder if they might have some insight on whether a speech issue could be contributing to the issues your child is having in story writing and listening in a group.

At the least, since you already have an SLP who knows your son well, it might make sense to rule this out before looking into any other type of evaluation.

He could have a disability, or just a preference.

I mean it could be? It also could be he just doesn’t enjoy writing. And it is possible he’s bored with school content so he gets distracted.

Anonymous wrote:When was he last tested for speech, and did he score average for both expressive and recessive? If so, why is he still in speech? Articulation only?

My child with speech needs started with only an expressive delay, but as her expressive speech caught up, she had recessive delays emerge. Is it possible there are issues with his recessive language now that he is expected to understand more?

Thanks! He was tested 1 year ago and had articulation issue with the “s”. Puts his tongue in between his teeth. He worked on that for a bit and still does, but I don’t see much progress. It was a small issue in my opinion. His speech therapist is spending most of the time on vocabulary, recalling details, irregular verbs, categories, etc.

When was he last tested for speech, and did he score average for both expressive and recessive? If so, why is he still in speech? Articulation only?

My child with speech needs started with only an expressive delay, but as her expressive speech caught up, she had recessive delays emerge. Is it possible there are issues with his recessive language now that he is expected to understand more?

My son is 6 (7 in 2 months) and in first grade in private school. He is the youngest boy in his class (a few girls are younger than him).

He reads really well, does really well at math (he is enrolled in Russian School of Math). He does well is Spanish (we are a multilingual household… and we speak 3 languages at home).

He hates writing. Handwriting is great and so is spelling, but it seems he can’t think through what he is writing and some of it just doesn’t make sense. Because he hates writing so much, I gave up on having him practice with me… he started crying so I stopped. Instead I have him tell me make up stories. I try to give him structure (main character, pick a problem, pick a solution)… this is also hard for him.

He has been in speech therapy for 2 years now to help with his expressive language. And when he was tested for it he scored average.

He also seems immature both in his interactions with his friends (he is very social) and in the classroom. It’s hard for him to focus in class when he is in a big group. He does really well one on one or in very small groups, but listening to a classmate or teacher speaking to the whole class is much more challenging and he often gets distracted talking to a friend.

Nobody has ever seemed worried about him… but we are in private school and I feel the teachers are always trying to please the parents.

Are these things he will grow out of?

My elder daughters were not like this.
Thank you