Dyspraxia in girls.

[Kb2942]

Hello all. I already have ds 10 who is autistic, he likely has coordination issues too but his autism diagnosis has kind of been a blanket diagnosis for all of his struggles!

Dd is 6. Said to be not autistic but who knows? Could be masking well!!

She is speech delayed... she talks a lot now but often unclear and immature for her age.

She didn't walk until 2. Still behind with her gross motor skills but fine motor skills aren't too bad.

She has hypermobility and Low muscle tone.

Very behind academically. Is not grasping phonics.

Can eat pretty well but is slow doing do so. So pretty good at using knife and fork but very slow. She takes an hour to eat dinner.

Struggled to get undressed and dressed.

Doesn't like to feel unsupported so doesn't like trampolines, bouncy castles or uneven surfaces.

Dyspraxia? Something else? Or similar just delayed?

Hi @Kb2942

There can be overlap between ASD and Dyspraxia but when my daughter was assessed by the paediatrician her scores were below the criteria for ASD. My daughter has always been very good with her speech but the low muscle tone, hypermobility & behind with gross motor skills are all similar things. She was late to walk, ride a bike & poor handwriting & using cutlery, she was finally diagnosed at age 8 with Dyspraxia/DCD. I know there is a wide spectrum like ASD with Dyspraxia & there can be different challenges including speech. The hypermobility & Dyspraxia combined makes things more of a struggle, my daughter still can’t swim very well and finds a lot of sports difficult.

@Sunshine4446 thank you for reply. My daughter has seen professionals who don't believe she is autistic but she's not been formally assessed.

She's under speech and language. Due to covid I haven't spoken to her speech therapist in a long while and she thought the school would have been considering referring her to be assessed for dyspraxia! Took me by surprise. I have read up about it before she does fit the bill somewhat but the school have never mentioned it yet speech therapist said it should have been done. I am concerned the school aren't taking it seriously (not the first parent saying this). She already has an EHCP!!

My DD has dyspraxia/DCD. It was picked up by the paediatrician when she was referred for an ASD assessment (she has this also). School didn't pick it up or mention it, although they did prompt the ASD referral. I have said this on here before but her dyspraxia effects her just as much as her ASD does, and yet it is poorly understood by other people, particularly school staff. I think they don't think beyond "clumsy" but it's so much more than that. I think diagnosis and relevant support/strategies are vital.

@NouvelleVague Yes agree, the school my daughter is at didn’t pick it up, and still don’t quite understand how it affects her. They just thought she was lazy and not trying hard enough with her handwriting :(

It was a real uphill battle for us as from the age of 2 knew something wasn’t quite right, the NHS kept referring us back to CAMHS which then got rejected so in the end we did go through a private paediatrician. I appreciate this isn’t possible for everyone but it means with the diagnosis we were
then able to get some physio & OT support which was through the NHS.

I was diagnosed with dyspraxia aged 20 and my parents thought I was autistic when I was little. There are quite a few overlaps with dyspraxia and autism, adhd and dyslexia.

I was told I had dyspraxia aged 7 but never been formally diagnosed mainly because my parents didn't really know how to go about it back then. The hypermobility and low muscle tone definitely sounds like a red flag to me and worth trying to get an official diagnosis. Like others have said we often show autistic traits and dyspraxia can go hand in hand with other conditions