Dyspraxia, what exactly is it???

[Blossomhill]

I know that it effects your motor skills and quite a few of the children in dd's unit have very poor speech too.
Is it a speech or language disorder. Can you grow out of it? Is it linked to ASD? Just really don't know that much about it and am very interested.
I know I should read up on it and I have a bit but nice to hear from people that know but also feel dd does have some traits of it (as well as everything else).
Thanks

[nikcola]

my little bro has it so ill be watching this thread with interest x

[Blossomhill]

Oh really nik. when was he dx?

[lou33]

have a look here babe

[starlover]

My brother who is now 27 has it.

TBH i don't know THAT much about it, other than he can't write very well still or use a mirror. Teachers used to just say he was clumsy.

Anyway... the light at the end of the tunnel is that he successfully got his way through college, and trained as an analyst programmer (amongst other things) and is now doing very well for himself!

AFAIK you don't grow out of it... i think like anything, you learn to deal with it.
Never heard it being linked to speech/language disorders or ASD... but like I say, i don't know a huge amount about it!

[nikcola]

not sure BH i dont see him much i just rember it all happening when he was in hospital at about aged 8 xxxx he is a truely lovely boy well man he is 16 now lol

[lou33]

it was thougth dd1 had it at one time

[SoBlue]

hi my son had it mildly it is more to do with how his body co-ordinates itself. It can show as being 'clumsy' tripping up etc. My son had left and right hand confusion in particular. This meant although he is left handed by nature, he always started things with his right. When he realised he was having difficulty he'd switch but the time delay made him very slow to respond. Sports was awfull for him except running which he loved. HTH

[Blossomhill]

Well I know it is defintiely a speech disorder as it can really affect speech.
Thanks lou, looking on the website there are lots of similarities to language disorders and asd although I know it isn't IYKWIM
My df's son who is moderately autistic has dyspraxia as well.

[Saker]

I know quite a bit about dyspraxia because this is what I suspect my ds2 (3.9y) has so I have read quite a bit about it.

There are 3 types:
motor which affects gross and fine motor skills
oral which affects speech sound production because of problems co-ordinating and using the muscles around the mouth
verbal which is a different thing and is to do with the messages from the brain to the mouth getting mixed up and making it very hard to speak and pronounce words properly.

With motor dyspraxia the child is usually unco-ordinated and clumsy, may have low muscle tone, may have trouble judging spaces and depth (for example, my ds2 still can't do a basic shape sorter), is probably late with motor milestones like walking and may not have crawled. They may have problems with fine motor skills (my ds2 can only just about hold a pen). They may have poor proprioception so their body sense if poor - they can't necessarily tell where they are in space without checking. My ds2 spends a lot of time rolling on the floor or pressing up to things to give himself feedback. They have poor organisational skills and motor planning, so my ds2 can't do a really simple thing like pretend to pour a cup of tea without holding the teapot upside down.

Language doesn't need to be affected at all but the child may have problems with processing which can affect their receptive language. Now in the case of my ds2 he has a lot of language problems and I don't know how much this is related to his other problems or whether it is a separate thing. However his language can get very muddled and I think this may be related to his organisational and planning skills.

Sorry probably gone enough. HTH a bit.

[anna007]

Hi all, I'm new to chatting here, tho' I think I've been a member of Mumsnet practically since it began. My ds is 10 now, & has dyspraxia. At 4 when he started school he couldn't hold a pencil. In fact, at 9 his writing tutor was still helping him to hold a pencil correctly.

Lots of people try forms of occupational therapy, & special pens, seats, etc to help with writing. We have tried most of that & in our case nothing has made any appreciable difference.

Lots of dyspraxics are very creative, and they can be very intelligent - tho' this can be overlooked. Some teachers will at first see only a clumsy messy disorganised child who can't write!

Lots of dyspraxics enjoy swimming, & can get very good at it - it needs less co-ordination than most sports. Some top swimmers have been dyspraxic.

My ds moved to a new primary school last September, & did entrance exams for secondaries in the Autumn - which is how he was put into a remedial support group for written English and interviewed for a scholarship to an excellent secondary school on the basis of his written English in the same term!! The difference? Simply that one school managed to read his writing & the other didn't.

Computers help a lot - using a mouse has always been far easier for ds than using a pencil. When he goes on to secondary school next year we hope he will use a keyboard in class & for exams as well as for homework.

[Jayzmummy]

J has 90% of the indicators for a dx of dyspraxia and was dx last year whilst at BIBIC. He is a very clumsy little sole and would trip over a pin! is gross motor isnt as badly affected as his fine motor control and we have a set of exercises which we carry out daily to help with his co-rdination difficulties. He has problems with organisational skills and personal space.

Isnt dyspraxia on the ASD spectrum? I have read in some books that it is but then in others that it isnt?

[mumeeee]

just seen this thread agree with saker there arrre 3 types of dyspraxia, although they can overlap. DD3 has dyspraxia she has trouble with co-ordination,poor handwriting altough that is getting better with age she is 13 and also has organisational problems (often losing and fprgeting stuff). Although her speech is fine she does find it difficult to explain and discuss things in depth. Yes Jayzmummy it is supposed to be on the ASD spectrum but only as a sort of branch as some symptoms (Is that the right phrase) can over lap with ASD symptons. No you can't grow out of it but children with dyspraxia learn ways to cope with it as they get older.Sorry this post seems a bit muddled, hope everyone can understand it!

[Saker]

Yes should have said you can have all three types of dyspraxia. I think it is quite common to have oral and motor dyspraxia together (I think that may be what my ds2 has).

[Jimjams]

BH ds1 has dyspraxia - he mainly has problems with motor planning. He finds sequences of movements tricky, although has no problems with balance, stairs, trikes, climbing etc. At 6 he still can't hold a pencil and just scribbles (although that may be because he sees things differently rather than he can't).He finds things like going headfirst down a slide tricky, and when younger would often end up nfacing the wrong way on the toilet (too much of a sequence to go through before getting on there).

He probably has verbal dyspraxia as well, although he can't be assessed. He is missing a lots of consonants and uses vowel sounds a lot. Trouble is his speech is very idiosyncratic so difficult to tell (for example I want toilet is dai dai mmdan)- a lot of people think he is just making random noises when he's actually talking. His private SALT who saw him a lot felt he may have verbal dyspraxia, but auditoory processing problems are common in autism anyway.

His grip is very light. Bibic said that was due to hypersensitivity, but sensory problems go qo with dyspraxia as well.

Lots of overlap between dyspraxia and ASD but that would be expected as they both have sensory problems at the route of them. Stella Wayerhouses book ' a positive approach to autism' descriibes how dyspraxia realtes to asd very nicely.

[lemonice]

ds is 17 and basically doesn't write (uses a laptop) the last year or two he has stretched to writing a postcard, one or two birthday cards (previously he just got his sisters to write). He used to get very angry but now more or less accepts that his reading and writing are poor and he has learnt to compensate (by avoiding it and getting other people to write on his behalf) but only from the age of 11 when we found a good school for him.

He never scribbled when small or drew a picture.

He also used to fall over all the time and we took a ds falling over kit with us everywhere.

He began talking a little bit late (about 3) and had a stammer (which he no longer has)

He has never read a book (he is dyslexic but can now read words very well if he has seen them before but doesn't always see that the guess he makes just doesn't fit in with the context and he doesn't get the sense page after page)

He is now happier at school than ever and i would never have imagined him in a sixth form but somehow he is managing although very lazy he likes businesss studies which astounds me but as i said the school seems to suit him and has 33% children with various learning difficulties.

He had some traits to do with routines and certain food and clothes, inabilility to understand other people's feelings and temper tantrums but a high IQ so has been a bit of an enigma and one way and the other we have muddled through although the first 12 years were difficult.

Sorry this ramble doesn't seem much to do with dyspraxia but i think it's a spectrum and his worst affected area is writing.

[tallulah]

DS1 has dyspraxia. When he was assessed at 6 they said he had problems with balance, with fine and gross motor skills and something to do with a midline sight problem (I forget what they called it but basically if something went past his face he couldn't see it once it went past his nose). He had huge problems with writing and a very peculiar gait (twisted) together with a variety of facial tics.

He doesn't like to be touched- esp his head- and won't wear certain clothes because they don't "feel' right. We had big problems with the texture of food when he was very young.

He was always falling over- we spent a lot of time at Casualty with him- and didn't learn to ride a bike until he was a lot older than other children.

We eased a lot of his physical problems with cranial osteopathy which he has been having regularly since age 7 (now 17).

Now we're just having a problem trying to decide whether he is physically fit/capable of learning to drive...

[Jayzmummy]

Someone told me to try this so I can feel myself a little wht life is like when you have dyspraxia.Its a bit hard tom explain when writing it so bear with me.

Hold out both of your arms.
Cross arm over one another.
Link your hands...fingers in between each other.
Draw your hand towards your body and then into the upright position.

Now lift up your index finger.

It should take you a while to work out which is your index finger because your brain has to work out where your fingers are.