Questions about dyspraxia

[TandB]

Just wondering if anyone can give me a general idea of how early dyspraxia is noticeable and what the best way forward is if it is suspected.

My DS's cousin is 3.5 and there have been suspicions about dyslexia raised by various family members - I was initially a bit sceptical, mainly because both parents are dyslexic and seemed quite set on the idea, from a very early age, that he would inevitably be dyslexic. There are a couple of things ringing alarm bells, but having spent a reasonable amount of time with him recently, and watching him at a soft play for a couple of hours this morning, I am actually wondering whether he is showing some signs of dyspraxia.

His gran has concerns mainly about speech and memory - he consistently swaps certain sounds around in words and seems to have quite a poor verbal memory. His speech development also seems to have slowed down/stalled quite noticeably - the gap between his speech and DS's (2.5) is getting smaller and smaller, and the rate at which DS is catching up seems to be accelerating - I don't know how much of this is normal for their ages, of course.

My concerns are more about co-ordination/movement. He tends to make the same "mistakes" again and again and doesn't seem to be able to correct them. For example, at soft play today, he ran into the same pillar again and again - literally every time he went near it. And several times he picked himself up and ran straight at it again. He also repeatedly trips over things that shouldn't be a problem and has unusually hard falls from minor trips or collisions - seems unable to stop himself or recover without a full-length fall. He also tends to run straight into other children more than you would expect. All fairly minor things, but they are starting to build up a bit of a picture.

Does any of this sound familiar, or am I falling into the trap of assuming there is something there simply because it has been talked about so much?

The main concern we have is what steps to take if there is a genuine issue. Without going into too much detail, there are some issues around parental ability/motivation to take action on anything other than basic, day-to-day needs - they tend to abdicate responsibility for a lot of the harder or more interactive parts of child-raising to other family members, particularly the grandparents. Realistically, if he needs additional help, it is likely that it will either have to be entirely arranged by the rest of us, or we will have to give them a very clear plan to follow and keep nagging about it.

I would appreciate any input - even if it is just "You are being paranoid"! There are schooling decisions to be made in the very near future and obviously any additional needs will be pretty high up the list of requirements in terms of a school choice, so if there is genuine cause for concern we would like to have an idea of what needs to happen asap.

Dyslexia and dyspraxia are often co-morbid and from a sensory integrative (SI) point of view it makes sense that a person with difficulty in one area would also have difficulty in the other.
Sensory Integration would hypothesise that if you have difficulty moving your body through space then you would have difficulty interpreting information that is visuo-spatially presented i.e. written words.
What was his early development like- was he delayed to sit up, rollover, crawl? In fact did he roll and crawl as both these skills are important pre-cursors for moving whole body through space?
The repetitive running into an obstacle inspite of 'knowing' its there as well as the inability to recover while falling would ring bells for me.
I would recommend an assessment with either a Physiotherapist or Occupational Therapist who have experience in early childhood development and have specialist Sensory Integration training. In due course, an assessment with a Behavioural Optometrist would give you advice if there are dyslexic issues.
i dont think you are being paranoid.

I agree with wannabe.

Technically to have dyspraxia you need to have motor planning issues - running into things by accident sound like motor planning issues.

There are loads of other symptoms he might have. Problems with fine moor skills, like using scissors or colouring in or pegs.

Unable to ride a tricycle or scooter.

Late with his physical milestones, sitting up, crawling, walking, toilet training.

Crawling in an unusual way. Walking or running in an unusual way.

Dyspraxia and dyslexia are very often co-morbid.

You should go o your GP and ask for a referral to an occupational therapist. (or you can o private if you prefer)

Thank you - very helpful replies.

I don't think he was significantly delayed in terms of the basic milestones - it is a bit difficult to be sure as his parents had a bit of a tendency in the first year to say he had done things like walking and saying words several months before he actually did them - eg they said he was walking before 8 months but none of us saw him even try to pull up and cruise until well after a year.

There was a bit of concern about his walking - he would walk holding onto things or with both his hands held, but he got quite upset about trying to walk unaided. I think he was about 16/17 months before he walked independently.

It is quite difficult to work out what he can and can't do - he is a very gentle, sensitive child and tends to be reluctant to try new things - he gets quite upset with even gentle encouragement to try something he is frightened of. He is coming round later so I might try and see what he is like on DS's balance bike and his scooter. There is also the fact that he and DS tend to wind each other up so it is difficult to get them to sit down and play games where motor skills might be apparent - his gran often has him on his own so I will ask about that side of things. I don't get to see it myself as he and DS tend to be too busy bashing things and running about the place!

I think they way we will go with it is probably do some focussed observations/DIY tests and then probably MIL will approach his parents about seeing one of the professionals you have both mentioned. I hope I haven't made his parents out to sound uncaring - they aren't. They just aren't great at putting in the very hands-on, one-on-one time that he needs, and are quite likely to simply accept that there is a problem and that is they way it is, rather than trying to push to get him past it as far as possible.

Walking at 16 months is delayed. That's the age my dyspraxic children started to walk.

It really does sound like he might have dyspraxia.

It can be quite hard to get diagnosed. You might need to be very persistent - especially since he's relatively oung.

But if he can be seen by an OT she should be able to give you loads of advice, plus exercises to be done daily to help him.

If he doesn't get diagnosed, and doesn't do daily therapy, it's not the end of the world. Most kids who have dyspraxia don't get a dx or any therapy. They muddle along as best they can and just think they're not ood at PE etc.

With ds2 (dyspraxia, hypermobile) his milestones weren't delayed but he was towards the later end IYSWIM. With walking he couldn't walk far before he'd get very tired and he was always (and I mean always!) falling over and hurting himself. Always walking into stuff. His speech was on the late side as well but not delayed.

is walking at 16 months delayed? hw was delayed then! HV told me it was fine

Good idea to look more carefully at what he can/cant do day-to-day. This will give any professionals a good baseline from which to work. If I may suggest, look at how he walks (i.e. quality of movement), how does he go up/down stairs and steps. Can he play tightrope walking (e.g. a chalked line on the patio)? How does he jump? does one side lead? Can he hold prone lying (Superman position) and supine lying? If you are going to see an OT get him to do some drawing and colouring and bring some examples. Good luck. If it is Dyspraxia there are many strategies that can help.

And walking at 16months is the outside edge of typical range of walking. In combination with other factors it would be an indicator but on its own not significant.

If both parents are dyslexic, then it is far from paranoid to read something into their child's motor skills and speech development and seek advice sooner rather than later. Dyslexia does run in families and I think it may well be more common for dyslexics also to show some signs of dyspraxia or mild motor clumsiness than not. Frankly, with two dyslexic parents, I would be looking out like a hawk for signs of dyslexia, too. They are not paranoid to be doing that, just realistic.

Rabbit stew - I was the one thinking I was paranoid, not his parents! Their comments about him being certain to be dyslexic date right back to him being a tiny baby. As far as i know his parents haven't really given the issue much more consideration since the rest of us started noticing possible signs. If there is goings be assessment/help it is likely to be driven by my MIL who does most one-on-one stuff with him, and any exercise routine will almost certainly fall to her.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I didn't know that physios might be able to give an opinion. My friend is a physio so might be able to give some guidance.

Can he see? My DS1 is badly dyspraxic but used to run into things like doorjambs and it turned out he was extremely long-sighted. That was diagnosed at about 3.5. Once he'd been prescribed extremely thick glasses he stopped walking into things, even tho the clumsiness was still apparent.

I don't think there is an eyesight problem, but it is probably worth covering all bases. Thanks for the suggestion.

One of the problems with the situation is that he is, by nature, a child who needs quite a lot of input in terms of development and his emotions. Because of the set-up he gets this input quite sporadically, so it is difficult to know how much of this might be a particular need, and how much of it could simply be his development not coming along as it could because he isn't being supported as well as he could be.

We would just prefer to err on the side of caution rather than have him struggle, and be proved right further down the line. We are, I suppose, lucky in that his parents won't be remotely obstructive to family 'interference' - they just won't do much about it themselves, beyond saying 'oh yes, we always thought there would be problems'.

with my ds he struggles in a 'busy' environment, so he would struggle to pick one thing out from a jumble of stuff for instance. So in a play area with lots of people and stuff about he would run into things.

Unless his parents have him strapped into a car seat most of the time, or prevent him from moving around, I don't see why their lack of input should result in him bumping into things and falling over constantly, tbh. They shouldn't need to teach him how to move about so as not to fall over and bump into other children if he doesn't have a problem with his motor development.

I'm thinking more about things like fine motor skills and recognition of colours etc in terms of input. For example, at one point his parents thought he was colour blind, but after MIL sat down with him and played a lot of colour related games, his colour recognition was a million times better. Similarly, they said he couldn't count to ten, but when I got him to count things with me, he quite clearly could.

The coordination issues obviously aren't going to be affected by input of that sort, although there was a period of time when he appeared to be deliberately having 'accidents' for attention. I don't think that is still happening now though.

He has been within today and I have been keeping an eye on him and the coordination things certainly aren't as obvious at home. He can manage a balance bike, but he doesn't want to try lifting his feet up and he does crash quite a bit or drop the bike. He doesn't tend to collide with things so much despite less space here, although this is obviously a more familiar environment.

Not sure what to think really. We have talked about it and the broad plan is to keep track of what we all notice and see if there are any concerns that we all have, and then perhaps have a serious chat with his parents about a specific course of action.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

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