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DS suddenly spelling his name wrong


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This has been bugging me for a couple of weeks now. My DS7 has not been doing well in general. He is again off of all ABX due to serum sickness. We've had several doctors now say IVIG and I am working on it. Insurance has been difficult, but the casemanager there is also on board with the appeal.

 

All year - DS has been writing beautifully. Even when he had little phases of behaviors and tics, his handwritting actually remained quite good. It was a huge problem last year!

 

Now all of a sudden, the letters are getting very big again, and very sloppy. But more confusing to me is he is spelling his name wrong! WTH is this? He is 7 and has known how to write his name for 4 years. But it's always the same - he omits one letter. His name is Carter. He is writing it as cater. In the past, if he accidentally made an error in writing his name, he would pitch a FIT and have to redo the entire paper. Now he doesn't care - just shrugs when I ask about it.

 

Also - our dogs name is Elton. He refuses to call him anything but Elt and gets infuriated when the dog gets confused and doesn't respond the way he wants. Elton is 14 years old!! He's confused on a good day :(

 

Any thoughts on what this is? Is it some form of OCD or is it just a manifestation of the ADHD, which has been growing steadily worse all year since his initial diagnosis.

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My son is 6 yrs old and has been writing his name since 3.5 or 4. With the last episode he is in he has started to dyslex his name. Something he's never done before. His writing has also gotten big and sloppy. No ommitting letters in his name but definitely leaving out vowels in other words. I've read that handwriting can become an issue with PANDAS kids, not sure why. I'm really new to this and hoping someone seasoned will have some answers.

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This has been bugging me for a couple of weeks now. My DS7 has not been doing well in general. He is again off of all ABX due to serum sickness. We've had several doctors now say IVIG and I am working on it. Insurance has been difficult, but the casemanager there is also on board with the appeal.

 

All year - DS has been writing beautifully. Even when he had little phases of behaviors and tics, his handwritting actually remained quite good. It was a huge problem last year!

 

Now all of a sudden, the letters are getting very big again, and very sloppy. But more confusing to me is he is spelling his name wrong! WTH is this? He is 7 and has known how to write his name for 4 years. But it's always the same - he omits one letter. His name is Carter. He is writing it as cater. In the past, if he accidentally made an error in writing his name, he would pitch a FIT and have to redo the entire paper. Now he doesn't care - just shrugs when I ask about it.

 

Also - our dogs name is Elton. He refuses to call him anything but Elt and gets infuriated when the dog gets confused and doesn't respond the way he wants. Elton is 14 years old!! He's confused on a good day :(

 

Any thoughts on what this is? Is it some form of OCD or is it just a manifestation of the ADHD, which has been growing steadily worse all year since his initial diagnosis.

 

PANDAS kids (at least mine did/does) can have visual spatial problems...I believe this (plus fine motor problems) can contribute to handwriting, spelling, math, problems. My dd also had problems with margin drift.

 

I suspect this spelling his name wrong will resolve with IVIG and resuming antibiotics.

 

Has his spelling in general gone downhill?

Edited by EAMom
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I agree with the above, but this can also be OCD. Kind of sounds like it might be. I learned very late in our dd's illness, that she could "no longer write the letter "g" as a lower case letter. She could only write it as a capital letter - or cursive g was ok too. Kids often don't know how to tell you this - it sounds a little crazy if you don't know what OCD is, and how it tries to make your brain follow all kinds of rules. Ask him to copy his name from a paper - see if he will do it. Visual will not effect just the one letter. If he "can't" do it, ask him to spell his name when you say the letters out loud. If he gets anxious or angry about this, you may have found a clue. He may also have a "rule" in his head about the dog's name.

 

I will never forget exactly where we were, when she suddenly wrote the letter "g" over and over with great confidence.

 

You may want to read one of the books about Childhood OCD, such as Aureen Wagner' "What to do when your child has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder". I found this very helpful in trying to understand our daughter's challenges in the initial phase of the illness.

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