More about Dyspraxia
Dyspraxia is a little-known condition and is very difficult to describe.
It probably can only be felt if you want to forensically describe it to your peers. But, I’m going to try anyway.
What is Dyspraxia?
Put simply, Dyspraxia, (or Developmental Coordination Disorder) is a brain-based condition that prevents the chemical messages in the brain from being transmitted properly. It is an immaturity of the way your brain transmits information. It has no known cause but if you are a sufferer, it stays with you for your whole life and fundamentally affects the way you perceive the world.
I know that in my case it was probably caused by the difficult birth that I had. I believe that at the time I was temporarily starved of oxygen due to birthing complications which might be a cause of the Dyspraxia that has been with me for my whole life. But it can also be an inherited condition.
Since then I have been making headway against all sorts of developmental milestones that I was late with. I’ve had poor concentration and retention ever since.
How can Dyspraxia affect a person?
Some of the aspects of Dyspraxia are how it changes the way you think and perceive the world. It causes clumsy movement and gait. It causes problems with fine and gross motor functions, e.g. tasks such as gripping a pencil. It affects hand-eye coordination (How many times do you find the next line in a book when you reach the end of the last one?)
I could go on.
But the thing is, the above is not an exhaustive list. The symptoms of Dyspraxia are not the same for everybody. Our brains make us uniquely ourselves and Dyspraxia is no different. However, it does make life that much more difficult.
But again, to summarise, people with Dyspraxia:
- Can have difficulty conveying their feelings into words and actions
- Can have poorly developed or underdeveloped speech and language skills. This is commonly referred to as Verbal Dyspraxia
- Can often have problems with Gross and Fine motor functions
- Can suffer from poor reading and writing skills due to poor concentration skills.
- Poor handwriting is one of the most common symptoms of dyspraxia
- Can have difficulty in planning and organising thought as well as poor memory skills
- Can suffer from problems with emotion and behaviour. This can include
- Can easily lose concentration and daydream affecting their learning development
- Can have “good and bad days”.
No two people are the same. You can find more resources about Dyspraxia on the Dyspraxia Foundation website, here. https://dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/advice/information-sheets-3/. You can also find a list of useful information about Dyspraxia in children, here, https://dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/about-dyspraxia/dyspraxia-glance/