Children with dyspraxia have difficulty coming up with ideas, sharing ideas with others and making quick adaptations in the moment. This often leads to difficulty in play with peers and in interactions with adults – particularly adults who have their own agenda (don't we all as parents, teachers and therapists?!).
Dyspraxia can make it difficult for children to develop social skills, and they may have trouble getting along with peers. Though they are intelligent, these children may seem immature and some may develop phobias and obsessive behavior.
Communication: Children with dyspraxia may struggle with different aspects of speech. They can have trouble pronouncing words or expressing their ideas. They may also have trouble adjusting the pitch and volume of their voice. As a result, making friends and being social can be much harder.
Adults with dyspraxia sometimes display social and emotional difficulties, as well as problems with time management, planning and personal organisation. This may affect the person's education or employment. Dyspraxia may make learning a new skill more difficult.
It can affect your co-ordination skills – such as tasks requiring balance, playing sports or learning to drive a car. Dyspraxia can also affect your fine motor skills, such as writing or using small objects.
generally it impacts fine motor skills (e.g. holding a pencil) and/or gross motor skills (e.g. riding a bicycle). It can also impact the ability to organise yourself, remember information and control actions. processing differences. They may be sensory avoidant e.g. leaving a room when noises are too loud for them.
A learner with dyspraxia may have limited concentration skills and poor listening skills – giving too much information quickly can overwhelms pupils and makes it hard to process and pick out key information. Asking questions and wanting immediate answers – pupils need time to process what has been said.
The person with dyspraxia may have significant difficulties successfully communicating even basic information. Even their yes/no responses may be inaccurate. This may extend to the use of non-verbal communication such as nodding, shaking the head or thumbs up/down gestures.
Teenagers with dyspraxia are significantly more likely to experience social and emotional difficulties compared to their peers. Similarly, adults with dyspraxia often experience social isolation and find it more difficult to succeed in the workplace.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dysgraphia, autism, etc. are learning disabilities that affect social skills and significantly hinder your child's social development. By helping your child tackle various social challenges, they will develop self-confidence and better interpersonal relationships with others.
Tend to get stressed, depressed and anxious easily. May have difficulty sleeping. Prone to low self-esteem, emotional outbursts, phobias, fears, obsessions, compulsions and addictive behaviour.
Although most children with dyslexia are not depressed, they are at higher risk for intense feelings of sorrow and pain. Perhaps because of their low self-esteem, children with dyslexia are often afraid to turn their anger toward their environment and instead turn it toward themselves, which can result in depression.
However, this does not mean that they are the same. Fundamentally, autism is a disorder that affects socialization and communication, while dyspraxia affects motor skills and physical coordination. While coinciding symptoms aren't uncommon, the two are considered distinct disorders.
Many people with Dyspraxia and other neurological deficits find interpreting the meaning of messages from what we see in the world around us a challenge. Of course some people without Dyspraxia sometimes experience these difficulties too, when trying to decode to us what seems like the impossible.
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) or Dyspraxia is commonly associated with difficulties with movement, when in fact there are many strengths associated with this neurotype. Big picture thinking, problem solving, tenacity, creativity and empathy are all qualities associated with DCD.
When such signals are blocked, a person can experience clumsiness, slightly slurred speech, awkwardness in walking, short-term memory loss, and a tendency toward shyness. Dyspraxia is classified as an “invisible” disability, because it does not manifest itself in a dramatically noticeable way to the casual observer.
Daniel Radcliffe (Actor)
Best known for his titular role in the Harry Potter films, Daniel revealed that he had a mild form of dyspraxia in 2008 in an interview for his Broadway debut in Equus. He was unsuccessful at school and 'he sometimes still has trouble tying his shoelaces.
This suggests that dyspraxia is associated with reduced social skill and empathy, but only in those without a diagnosis of ASC. Cassidy and colleagues suggest that the lack of association between dyspraxia and social skills in the group with autism could be due to under-diagnosis of dyspraxia in this population.
So although there are similarities, autism is primarily a social and communication disorder and dyspraxia is primarily a motor skills disorder. If your child has one of these conditions but you feel they also have other difficulties, you may think about further assessment.
Living with the fear that you could 'screw up' at any moment can play havoc with your mind, and can lead some people with dyspraxia to withdraw from social situations, such as dating.
Many children with dyspraxia develop low self-esteem. To avoid this, others give up on the things they find difficult, so losing the opportunity to develop and improve that children who are more able in those areas can take advantage of.
There may be a range of co-occurring difficulties which can also have serious negative impacts on daily life. These include social and emotional difficulties as well as problems with time management, planning and personal organisation and these may also affect an adult's education or employment experiences.
While they do not get worse over time, their challenges may become more apparent with increasing academic demands. They have to work harder and/or differently than their peers to achieve the same goals. Despite their difficulties, pupils with dyspraxia can and do learn to perform some motor tasks quite well.
Tiredness and fatigue are overwhelming for many adults who have dyspraxia due to the effort it takes in planning, prioritising, processing and performing everyday tasks whilst trying not to get distracted.