Dyspraxia

[Foxy800]

Hi there,

Just wondered if anyone could give me any information about dyspraxia? Eg. Possible symptoms and any other information.

Anything would be gratefully received. Thanks in advance.

Have been swotting up on this one as the EP thinks our DD has it so here goes these are the symptoms our DD has
-Clumsy falls over all the time
-cannot kick a ball, or use pedals on bike
-Cannot throw or catch a ball
-Sensitive to touch ie will not let us put a plaster on her
-forgets things, tasks learned (weak memory)
-cannot hold pen or pencil properly
-cannot hop or skip

• cannot dress herself or button coat etc

-struggles to feed herself (meal time is very busy) -gets frustrated and impatient more than a child her age she is 4 -knocks things over, spills things -Problems using stairs etc walks awkwardly

• cannot stand on one leg.

Also trouble with fine motor skills doing jigsaws etc.

Hope this helps x

Many thanks, that is a great help.

Dyspraxia foundation website is a good starting point. btw in some degree it is very common (up to one in five, more boys than girls). Referral to a paed and then OT is a typical route for assessment.

Also have a look at this as it seems that dyspraxia and SPD often go hand in hand. My DS has just been diagnosed with both.

In our area, the child gets referred to the Child Development Centre (CDC) where a physio and Occupational Therapist do the assessment.

And depending on the age of your DC there seems to be some crossover with the autism spectrum:
Problems with social skills
Lots of time needed to process
Has difficulty with more than 2 part instructions
Limited ability to concentrate on specific tasks, easily distracted
Unaware of danger
Delayed language
Literal use of language
Hand flapping or clapping when excited
Easily distressed, very emotional

This is by no means a definitive list and children never tick all the boxes.
There's a really good book by Madeleine Portwood, Developmental Dyspraxia.

I support a child who has ASD and dyspraxia DX and his parents aren't convinced he has ASD as most of his symptoms are covered by dyspraxia. TBH he wouldn't have got any support with just a dyspraxia DX so it has been beneficial. He has trouble getting along with his peers but is lovely with adults. HTH

Many thanks everyone ofr your replies. My 5 yr old dd had a paeds appointment on Monday and is being referred to a OT but it could be at least 6 months till she gets an appointment, paed going to see her again at the end of the summer term again. Dyspraxia was one of the names of things she banded at me but she has said obviously it is early days and I was just looking for information on some of them. Again many thanks.

Dyspraxia is more usually found as "Developmental Coordination Disorder" by international researchers.
I have a collection of Dyspraxia - Developmental Coordination Disorder research papers (44 research papers) at PubMed which is listed on my Invisible Disabilities research paper web page
(PubMed are making some technical changes to their server service so you may have to click in the like a few times to get to the research papers)

Hi Foxy... we're at a similar stage of the dv process. ds1 is under paeds and awaiting his OT appointment. Paeds are sending him for blood tests to rule out metabolic problems but did say it's highly unlikely.

Luckily ds1 was in brilliantly odd humour the day we were at the hospital (little sod was the picture of and angelic normal child during his previous assessment by the school medical officer so I was starting to panic that no HCP would ever see the unusual behaviour that's driving us and the school to distraction!)

He's extremely clumsy, uncoordinated, can't pedal well, only started drawing anything recognisable a few months ago and now repeatedly draws the same 2/3 simplistic pictures over and over again, he never crawled as a baby and still struggles to do so, he's easily distressed, finds new routines difficult and needs a long time to process information. He repeats words or phrases he's heard (often the last word of a telling off which is a sure fire way to drive me completely mad), he often speaks far too loudly or in an odd baby voice. He has trouble with instructions and listening and is very easily distracted.

There's loads more tbh... the printed A4 list i hand HCP's is almost 2 pages long.

A lot of his traits on paper sound quite like ADHD and the SMO did want him assessed for that but I'm fairly convinced it's not (whilst he can be very giddy and hyper he can also be the laziest sod you've ever met and is far less active than my other two children) and it turned out due to some odd local structuring he couldn't be on the list for OT and Psyche at the same time anyway and I asked for OT to be a priority.

Good luck with you dd... hope the appointment goes well.

dolfrog thanks for that link... looking forward to having a sift through tomorrow

dolfrog... double thanks, I've just spotted you have articles on oral and verbal dyspraxia as well. My younger son is non-verbal and very likely to get a diagnoses of oral dyspraxia

Dolfrog

I'm sure I'm being thick but how do you actually read the articles? What a great collection of info you have there.

thank you so much for the replies. will have a look tomorrow.

Ben10... most of them are journals that you need to subscribe to or pay per article. I'm able to access most of them via the OU library though

Thanks Summerrain. Wasn't me being too thick then and missing a link!

my ds 3.4 has just been diagnosed with verbal dyspraxia - thanks for the links

Ben10isthespawnofthedevil

you are not being thick. It took me awhile to work out how the world of research operates.
I use PubMed because they have the biggest online research paper library, and they allow you to create your own online collections of research papers that interest you. And they have a complex method of letting you share your own online PubMed collections. So the only way to share multiple collection is to create a web page that lists the links to collections you have created online at PubMed.

The list of articles provides the research papers title, the papers authors, the date of publication and some academic information. When you click on a research paper title link, you are taken to the research paper abstract or summary. Not all papers proved an Abstract, however most do. For some research papers, it is possible to gain a pdf copy of the full paper or Research Journal Text for Free, but for others there is a fee, which can vary from $10 to$40 and a few more are even more expensive. There has been a move to try to allow free access to all papers after a number of years after the original date of publication, but is not universally applied as yet. Most universities and research facilities can create an account with the various Research Journal publishers and their staff and students have free access to near all of the research papers which would usually require a fee to access the full paper.

PubMed to provide a marker for those research paper which are free to download, and a link to the download site. To get the overall picture of the information research can provide reading a number of related research paper abstracts, and Free PDF papers will show how the whole body of research in particular area is saying.

Thank you Dolfrog. That's really helpful info. I'll have a look and see if there are any I want that have free PDFs.