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Learning Disabilities - Dyspraxia
What is Dyspraxia?
Dyspraxia is an
immaturity of the organisation of movement. That means that when
the brain comes to telling the body to move a certain way, the message
gets mixed and so the movement doesn't happen properly. Dyspraxia
affects the planning of what to do, and how to do it.
Dyspraxia is also known
as Developmental Co-ordination Disorder (DCD), perceptuo-motor
dysfunction (PCD) and Motor Learning Difficulties. Dyspraxia
affects people in varying degrees. It is thought that up to 2% of
the population are affected severely, with up to 10% being affected
overall. It affects males 4 times more than females and, as with
Dyslexia, it sometimes runs in families.
There are three (3) types of
Developmental Dyspraxia. Oral Dyspraxia, Verbal Dyspraxia (DVD), and
Motor Dyspraxia. The three variations effect approximately 5% of the
population with approximately 70% of those effected being boys.
Oral Dyspraxia causes children not to be
able to reproduce mouth movements. When asked to put their tongue up to
the top of their mouth a child with oral Dyspraxia may not be able to,
even though they do this unconsciously.
Children with Developmental Verbal
Dyspraxia have difficulty in making sounds or making sounds into words.
For example, a child with DVD might have trouble producing sounds in the
beginning, middle or end of words such as 'sh'. When trying to say
"shop" it might come out as bop, regardless of how hard they try to
produce the sound/word correctly..
Motor Dyspraxia limits
an individual from moving as planned and organising sensory
input. Children with Motor Dyspraxia appear to be clumsy, but don't
confuse a clumsy child with a child that has Motor Dyspraxia. While some
refer to Motor Dyspraxia as "Clumsy Child Syndrome" they
are not the same thing .
(Source:
Australian Dyspraxia Support Group and Resource Centre)
Dyspraxia and dyslexia
are often present in the same person so that they not only have motor
problems, they also have problems with language, perception and
organising their thoughts.
As Dyspraxia affects
motor skills, daily life can be a huge struggle - buttoning clothes,
writing, coordinating a knife and a fork, etc.
Dyspraxic children are usually of average or
above intelligence. As you can imagine, having Dyspraxia and not being
able to get your body to do what you want it to do, when you want it to
do it, (i.e. talk properly or throw a ball correctly) can be very
frustrating to a child.
Common Signs of
Dyspraxia
Dyspraxia has different indicators at different stages of development.
Babies with dyspraxia:
- are often irritable and may have difficulties with feeding.
- are slow to reach the expected developmental milestones such as
sitting and walking.
- don't go through the stages of crawling - they prefer to
bottom-shuffle and go straight to walking.
- may resist tasks involving motor skills.
As children get a little older,
they may:
- have difficulty with eye movements, moving the whole head to
look around, instead of just the eyes.
- have trouble using cutlery or holding a cup to drink
- have difficulties with most gross motor (large movement) skills like
walking, skipping, throwing, catching and riding bikes.
- have a delay in speaking or has speech that is difficult to understand
- be delayed in establishing their left or right handedness
- have difficulties with fine motor (small movement) skills such as
buttoning clothing, tying shoelaces and hand-writing
- be sensitive to touch
- have a poor sense of direction
In school-aged children, dyspraxia can make life very challenging,
causing difficulties such as:
- problems in physical education classes because their coordination is
not at the level of their peers
- a reluctance to participate in class discussion because of problems
with speech and organising their thoughts.
- frustration with completing school work because of the physical
difficulties that accompany hand-writing.
Strategies for managing Dyspraxia
There is no cure for dyspraxia,
but early intervention with occupational, speech or a physical therapist
can make a great difference to a person's ability to be independent and
to function properly.
Parents and teachers
need to be patient and offer encouragement to their children.
Children will benefit if they get the chance to participate in tasks
they find a little easier and to have lots of practice with the tasks
they find challenging, so that their confidence and self esteem are
increased. Success builds success!
Learn more about
Dyspraxia:
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