There's a difference between
dyspraxia and
apraxia. Apraxia often only refers to speech, while dyspraxia is often used for various motor control and planning issues.
His profile sounds very much like our ds' did when he was evaluated. OT did help tremendously. He's still not terribly coordinated, and his dyspraxia came back to make our lives difficult this spring when he had to do a math unit on Tangrams. The poor child just could not see how to arrange those shapes. He could barely copy it when I did it.
When hunting for a website to define dyspraxia, I ran across this, which looks good.
http://www.childsupport.in/html/dyspraxia.html
"Sensory Processing Disorder" is not an official diagnosis in the DSM-IV. Lucy Jane Miller and the SPD foundation are working to get it into the DSM-V. But because it's not in the DSM-IV, most school districts and most insurance companies don't recognize it as a diagnosis. Our OT was great and told us exactly what 'codes' we had to have our physician diagnosed to get the OT covered under insurance. (It was essentially disorders of the nervous system, I've got the codes at home if it's at all helpful to anyone.)
I don't have any info on apraxia -- it is given as a diagnosis, but I think that you need someone specialized to give that diagnosis.
