Milestones
School-age (5–12 years)
What DrSensory has on ages five to twelve, organized by the question parents usually arrive with.
- Patient Focused
By five, most of what a child finds hard is happening somewhere you aren't. School sees your child against a class of twenty-five and reports back in fragments — a comment at a conference, a grade that slipped, a note about the cafeteria. The job of these years is working out which fragments are a pattern, and what to ask for once you know.
The years when differences in attention, learning, movement and regulation stop being “they’ll grow out of it” and start showing up as school reports, homework battles and friendship trouble. This page collects what DrSensory has on the school years, organized by the question parents usually arrive with.
Is it a learning difference?
Reading, writing, and the skills behind them.
- Dyslexia: Signs, Diagnosis, and What Helps
- A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Dysgraphia
- Types of Learning Disabilities in Children
- Executive Function Disorder Strategies for Middle Schoolers
- All learning and thinking →
Attention, focus, and behavior at school
When the classroom is where it shows.
- Early Signs of ADHD: What Every Parent Should Know
- Supporting a Child With SPD and ADHD at School: What Works
- ADHD Parenting Strategies That Work: What the Evidence Supports
- All ADHD →
- All behavior and emotions →
Getting support from the school
The paperwork that unlocks help.
- IEPs and 504 Plans: How to Get School Support for Your Child
- Parent-Teacher Conferences for a Neurodivergent Child: What to Ask and What to Say
- Resources for teachers →
Sensory needs in the school years
Noise, movement, clothing, cafeterias, fire drills.
- Sensory Sensitivities: Practical Support for Families
- Understanding Sensory Overload in Children: Signs, Impact, and Strategies
- Sensory Diets: Activities, Evidence, and How to Build One
- Meltdown or Tantrum?
- All sensory processing →
Movement, handwriting, and posture
The motor side of the school day.
- Crossing the midline
- W-sitting
- Understanding Motor Planning in Sensory Disorders
- All orthopedic and movement →
Anxiety and emotions
Worry that follows a child to school and back.
- Managing Anxiety in Children: What Parents Can Do
- Anxiety in Children: Signs, Treatment and What Helps
- Separation Anxiety in Children with Special Needs
- Social Skills and Autism: What Helps, and What to Question
Medical disclaimer. This page is for general educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If your child has lost skills they previously had, contact their doctor.