I was talking to a new friend last week.  She was asking me some questions about Elizabeth because she has some strong feelings that her child has special needs.  She feels he may have Dyspraxia, like Elizabeth.

During our talk, she asked me about the difficulty we had teaching Elizabeth to use utensils to eat.  I told her that it was a struggle.

With Elizabeth’s special needs of Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and Dyspraxia, there were many layers to penetrate as we tried to teach this skill.  I told her I can remember how deftly she could feed herself with her fingers and how much harder it was for her to manipulate a spoon or fork.

This struggle would, of course, increase her anxiety and frustration.  And this would lead to many emotions.  None of which made the meal time the calm place we all wanted it to be. Read the rest of this entry »