Any mums in the area with Dyspraxic DC?

[TangoCharlieWhiskey]

Hello,

I've not been on here for ages, so please be gentle!

I am wondering if there any mum's locally who may be happy to chat on here about schooling and the challenges they DC have faced generally.

My DS is newly diagnosed, and it would be lovely to hear from others who have been on the same journey.

Thanks

My DC is in Yr 7 and started off with a diagnosis of dyspraxia plus various physical difficulties relating to his prematurity and hips. The diagnosis was changed to 'dyspraxia traits' because my DC proved not to have a motor planning profile that fitted.

Our main challenge to start with was being in a school that wasn't very sympathetic in its handling of our DC. Our next school was very different and our current school likewise.

Our DC gets very fussed about the things he finds tricky - spacial stuff in Maths, fine and some gross motor skills. Handwriting was slow to become neat, but is now very good. Some dyspraxia children are allowed to type tests, our DC has so far resisted this as he likes to be like everyone else.

Sport can be challenging. Football and Rugby and anything that requires spacial awareness and coordination. Swimming was something we focussed on intensively and eventually got. Cycling still isn't truly underway.

Revision is a very important area as dyspraxic people tend to forget what they haven't learnt recently. They can even forget the alphabet or times tables once these things cease to be a feature of everyday learning. But, dyspraxic children are generally very bright so getting info back up there at the top of the list is not so hard with a bit of parental input.

I'm never sure how much this is dyspraxia and how much it's my son's physical difficulties. However, knife and fork use was slow to develop and driving from an open cup very slow when he was little.

My DS has dyspraxic traits, he struggles with PE and handwriting in particular, also spelling is a real weakness.

My impression of his primary school was that they were a little bit clueless (they do now have a new SENCO) though they did try to do some of the things that the OT suggested. Because he wasn't struggling academically I think they thought he was fine (and he was to a certain extent).

The SENCO team at his secondary seem pretty good, they have looked at him as an individual and put some things in place to help. They mentioned the possibility of him using a laptop in class so we may go down that route in future.

He really doesn't like any kind of organised team sport, his ball skills are pretty woeful. This has hampered him socially, especially at primary school. We do make him swim each week and he has (slowly) improved (he was stuck in the same group for a long time).

Surprisingly he is fine at riding a bike and did well in the bikeability they did last year, his balance seems generally pretty good. He doesn't seem to have much road awareness but perhaps that is lack of practice.

Looking back some signs were there quite early, he was very late to develop a hand preference (they thought he was left handed in yr1 but he said it wasn't any easier with either hand so we encouraged him to use his right hand), slow to learn to use cutlery (and he's still not great at that tbh).

I guess each person is different and may struggle in different ways, I had an adult friend with dyspraxia and she ended up taking the door off her kitchen because she found it really got in the way. One of my cousins was diagnosed as a child, back when it was called "clumsy child syndrome"(!) and they had to fight for him to use a computer for his GCSEs, he is doing fine now as an adult.