Dyslexia, Mixed Hand Dominance, Language Delay, Retained Reflexes?
March 21, 2019 6:44 AM   Subscribe

Any thoughts on any of the above? :)

Askmefi has been so helpful with my concerns about my daughter, that I thought I'd try again!

I have a three year old daughter who has a language delay. She is really catching up these days, which is great, and she now basically meets the minimum for most speech milestones, though she still feels pretty behind her peers. We're doing fairly intensive speech therapy (mostly parent-led, lots of homework), and we are consulting with someone who is going to teach us formal Floortime (as opposed to just playing with her, which we do a lot now.) We do music therapy. She's had an eye test, and we have a follow-up; apparently she's too young to test for other vision issues that may hurt reading.

Interestingly, we just had a full OT assessment, which found that she was normal in all areas (except that she is very hypermobile). OT did not have any cognitive concerns and said she met all the standards for gross/fine motor skills, etc. One thing she did say though was that she has not settled on a dominant hand, even though she is strongly right-footed.

This, of course, sent me into a tailspin of research, where I found a lot of doom and gloom about this and mixed-handedness in terms of dyslexia, ADHD, etc. (I know, I shouldn't google so much, but I actually have found so much help this way). Dyslexia frequently runs in late talkers so that's not surprising. I've sometimes thought she has an unusual mind. We were doing puzzles recently (she really likes puzzles), for example, and she asked me for the piece with the "spoon" on it. It was a picture of a cartoon mouse, except that the empty space between the mouse's legs looked like a spoon. I couldn't believe that was what she saw.

I'm just wondering if there's anything I can do now to minimize the effects of any (negative) issues that might come up? For example, I see some OTs where I live offer "retained reflex therapy" which sounds woo, but I'm open if it doesn't hurt. It is expensive though. I see lots of stuff online about teaching phonics to people prone to dyslexia which sounds great (multi-sensory.)

Anyway, TLDR: anything else that would support a child with this profile? Any experience with early intervention for dyslexia? Any experience with retained reflex therapy? Or even experience with hypermobility? I think she's such a cool kid as she is obviously, but I still want to help her head off any academic difficulties once she starts school in a year (where we live). Thanks!


PS: We're fairly confident she's not autistic -- apparently her social communication at her nursery is great (and they recently referred another girl for assessment, who did turn out to be autistic), and none of the doctors/speech therapists/OT specialist thought that she was autistic either. Our speech therapist says she has some of the best eye contact she has seen. But I do know that we would need a proper assessment to be sure -- but that is basically impossible where we live (not in the US) without forking over a lot of money we don't have.
posted by heavenknows to Grab Bag (10 answers total)
 
Did the OT say that the lack of hand dominance was an issue?
Otherwise, and I'm trying to say this as kindly as possible, it seems like you might be going a little overboard here.
posted by k8t at 7:40 AM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]


Does she/will she go to preschool?
posted by vunder at 7:40 AM on March 21, 2019


Response by poster: k8t I think you may have hit the nail on the head. OT doesn't think it's a big issue though I'm still waiting for her formal report. I think she said it would settle. I think I probably just need a deep breath. Have seen family members who should have had early intervention struggle so I am just hypervigilant. She's so different to my other children!

And yes, vunder, she is in preschool! They say she is on par for her age in everything except speech but catching up.
posted by heavenknows at 7:49 AM on March 21, 2019


Oh gosh, reading this, I can feel your worry about your daughter's future dripping off the page. I can empathize with this, as I've spent untold hours tied in knots worrying about the right things to do.

But I think the best metric is probably: Is [thing] interfering with your child's or family's daily life? If yes, pursue therapy. If no, table it for now.

So, clearly, if your child has a speech delay and is making progress with speech therapy, absolutely do speech therapy! However, it's OK for hand dominance to solidify later, and she's probably not reading yet, so I wouldn't worry about dyslexia NOW. I mean, sure, keep an eye out for reading difficulty when the time comes, but I don't think preventative therapy is a wise use of time, energy, or resources. As for the spoon, kids observe the darndest things! I like to use my kids' atypical observations as an opportunity for conversation, to connect with them, to say things like, "Oh, huh, to me that looked like a __. But I see how it looked like a spoon to you."

As for things like teaching her phonics, I mean, sure? I'm a big fan of casual learning integrated into everyday play. At 3 I did early phonics stuff like teaching beginning sound awareness with silly alliterative sentences: "The Crying Crab Couldn't Catch the Crazy Cat!" and then kid collapses in giggles. And most kids enjoy those obnoxious toys where you press a letter of the alphabet and it says the letter sound and maybe a word. But you don't need a reading therapist yet, y'know?

Of all the things you mentioned, the hypermobility is the only one that might be a little concerning, and that's a question for the OTs as to whether you need to take any precautions or whether it's just a thing that's there but isn't particularly consequential at this time.

It sounds like you've already identified the most important thing, which is speech therapy, and beyond that, I think it's important to relax a little and make a point of appreciating the kid you've got, and support her by loving her, staying in touch with her teachers to make sure they think things are on track, and periodically checking in with yourself about whether her development is on track but not worrying about it incessantly.
posted by telepanda at 8:01 AM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]


I would not worry about it for a second! Kids always reach milestones at variable times, and 3 is not an outlier on hand dominance. Focus on the fact that the fine & gross motor skills tested fine, and cross motor skills off your list of worries. You're already doing all the right things with the parent-led speech and floortime.
posted by schwinggg! at 8:06 AM on March 21, 2019


Okay, I'm going to be a bit rough on you.

k8t and telepanda have touched upon your anxiety, but I really think you should consider professional help to work through your fears. You had once asked a question about what parents could to do "inoculate" their kids from mental health problems and truthfully, this seems like a continuation of this. You're seeing all these bogeymen in the woods that don't exist.

You're doing a lot of negative projection and reassurance-seeking that is FAR beyond typical parent worrying. Even mentioning autism--you have zero reason to think she is on the spectrum, but you're still considering it as a diagnosis and want to get her tested--that's not a typical parent thought. You want to do early intervention for dyslexia, except she doesn't have dyslexia. You want to work with her hypermobility but the OT said it isn't an issue. That's far beyond typical parental worry.

I really feel like the best thing you can do now is look at what's going on in your head and figure out why you're so anxious about your kid.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 8:32 AM on March 21, 2019 [12 favorites]


Sorry also, getting trained in Floortime, getting her vision tested, having her do music therapy, worries about autism, ADHD, dyslexia, hypermobility, having an OT assessment for no reason that showed no concerns but you you're willing to try another therapy for something that's not a problem...

...unless you've left out the part that her pediatrician said she needed all of this, you're describing interventions that are completely unnecessary and frankly, a bit worrying.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 8:50 AM on March 21, 2019 [10 favorites]


If she's on par for everything except speech where she's catching up, then why do you need to address anything except speech a bit? Getting a toddler's eyesight tested in general is a sensible thing as glasses can be really helpful. Also, take them to the dentist, ensure they're immunised etc. But there's nothing to really suggest that your child needs more assessment and intervention at this point in her life.

Take a step back, and enjoy the child that you have. If you need help managing your anxiety, then seek it out. (I think this would be a good investment, regardless of how your children develop.)
posted by plonkee at 10:20 AM on March 21, 2019


I have mixed hand-eye (and foot-eye) dominance -- but I'm still your standard right-side dominant in everything except archery and figure skating. I literally didn't know about the mixed dominance until I was tested for a left-handed vs. right-handed bow at age 26, although there were some retrospective clues toward being semi-ambidextrous.

Really it just means that I have first-world lefty minority woes in a select few areas of life and I can write my name with my left hand on the whiteboard, which was a fun parlor trick in college. If anything, being more ambidextrous than the average person is a bonus, as strongly right-dominant people can be shockingly bad at doing anything useful with their left hand. I certainly didn't suffer any learning disabilities stemming from my "undiagnosed" mixed dominance -- I had a stellar academic record from kindergarten through undergrad.
posted by serelliya at 11:22 AM on March 21, 2019


I just wanted to pop in and say that I feel where you are coming from. I also have a three-year-old. I know how to read medical literature, and ever since the beginning of my (high-risk) pregnancy with him I've been going down rabbit holes trying to calculate the probabilities of various adverse outcomes. As I do it, I know that it's an anxiety thing, but I keep thinking that knowing more, putting numbers down, will help me feel better.

As it happens, my son has given me plenty of fodder for this anxiety. Among other things, he had some motor delays in his first year, he's below the growth curve in height, and recently he's been having some articulation issues. You can be sure that I know every little bit about every worst-case scenario for each of these things -- but in reality I've got a perfectly healthy kid who was a bit anemic and whose genes make him a bit short.

I'm not sure why I've been so much more anxious with this child than with my older son. Perhaps I just got in the habit during the pregnancy.

What I have learned is that there is a strong cognitive distortion that comes from focusing on the literature about a particular diagnosis. For example, the more I was reading about autism, the more normal that diagnosis seemed to me, so that it started to seem like my child would be beating the odds if he didn't have autism. And then I'd read articles about particular outcomes given a diagnosis, like X% of children eventually learn to walk (or whatever), and in thinking about those numbers I'd forget that, statistically speaking, my child was very unlikely have that diagnosis to begin with.

I counter these anxious impulses by trying to be self-aware, consciously listening go my non-worried husband, limiting my internet searches, and (most importantly) working on my overall mental health. If I were feeling as worried as you, as consistently as you seem to be, I would be seeking help from a mental health practitioner. Feeling this anxious has got to be making you miserable, and even if your daughter does end up with a diagnosis, she'll be better served by a parent who is in good mental health.

Memail me if you'd like to chat.
posted by wyzewoman at 12:27 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]


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