This is sometimes also called Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) and affects a child’s gross and fine motor skill development and sometimes their sensory profile.
Questions we will consider as a school are: does the teacher see functional difficulties with a child’s self-care skills? E.g. changing for PE, gross motor coordination in PE, fine motor skills – scissor and pen skills, knife and fork skills, handwriting? Does the child appear clumsy and less able to coordinate their movements than peers? Struggles to throw and catch in PE? We typically need to evidence three different functional areas that the child struggles with, in order to refer.
A DCD diagnosis is a health diagnosis and requires a referral to an Occupational Therapist. The OT service needs to see that the school has put in appropriate interventions such as Fizzy or Clever Hands for up to 50 sessions, before a referral can be made. Therefore, gathering what is needed for an OT referral can take some time.
Once the referral is made, the wait can be 3-4 months before parent and child is invited to clinic (if the referral criteria is met). The OT can then identify strengths and weaknesses and help parents and school develop a programme and/or strategies that will help the child compensate for their motor weaknesses.