Our Hidden Dyspraxia…

All my life I was a bit “different” if that’s even a thing, what is normal? What I mean by different is my brain worked differently.  I couldn’t do some things that my peers could & I often didn’t understand things very well, I questioned things a lot as for me to understand things I had to REALLY understand them.  

When I was at secondary school, I done well in 1^st & 2^nd year but in 3^rd year my grades fell dramatically, my teachers blamed it on “Lack of concentration” or “Not applying herself” but in reality I was fighting a battle no one knew of, not even me.  

It wasn't until I was 25 & at college for my lecturer to point out something wasn’t quite right, the way I struggled to organise my workload & other daily struggles.  I was then put in touch with health professionals who diagnosed me with Dyspraxia.  
I had lived a quarter of a century, had two children and tackled a good part of my HNC without knowing this, it was a lot to compute at the time, however I was able to go on and pass my HND with an A.  Then all my thoughts of Dyspraxia went on to Jay my eldest child (Now 8 years old).  

With Jay right from the start things were flagging up, he didn’t walk until he was 18 months old and gradually I noticed things that make him “different” especially when his younger brother came along and the difference in their learning ability made it so clear Jay had something else going on.  

Dyspraxia as an adult (Key points)

·      Poor organisation skills 

·      Poor time keeping

·      Messy hand writing

·      Difficulty with make up (Eye liner etc.)

·      Generally messy 

·      Anxiety 

·      Difficulty filling in forms 

Dyspraxia as a child (Key points)

·      Messy handwriting

·      Don't tend to crawl (Bum shuffled instead)

·      Late walker

·      Messy eater (Finds using cutlery difficult)

·      Sport difficulties (Especially ball sports) 

·      Slow runner

·      Cant tie shoe laces

·      Cant ride a bike

·      Slow understanding things

                                          

“Specific Learning Difficulties (or SpLDs), affect the way information is learned and processed. They are neurological (rather than psychological), usually run in families and occur independently of intelligence. They can have significant impact on education and learning and on the acquisition of literacy skills.

SpLD is an umbrella term used to cover a range of frequently co-occurring difficulties, more commonly:

·       Dyslexia.

·       Dyspraxia / DCD.

·       Dyscalculia.

·       A.D.D / A.D.H.D.”

“An untrained observer may conclude that a student with a SpLD is ‘lazy‘, or ‘just not trying hard enough’.” 

http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/educator/what-are-specific-learning-difficulties

                               

                               

Right now I am in contact with the school & also Rainbow house, to get Jay officially diagnosed – this is something I have taken time to decide and just last year I spoke to Jay about it and we decided together an official diagnostic might help him with school.  

Dyspraxia the hidden disability….

Its so hard for me as an Adult, people say –

“just get more organised”

“just plan your day better and you will be on time” etc.

Or with Jay people say –

“Eat properly, stop being so messy”

“You should be able to ride a bike, your 8” etc.

When in reality it is like saying to someone who has a disability that affects their ability to walk "just walk".  Well maybe not quite as bad, we might be able to put things in place to help but it’s so much harder for us, people don’t realise that.  

With Jay at school teachers are always saying he is very intelligent & bright, however when it comes to putting it on paper he struggles, that is because – most of his peers will have now mastered writing and they are concentrating on their spelling, punctuation etc.  However, Jay is still concentrating on everything has learned about writing as he has never mastered it, he finds it difficult to even hold a pencil, not to mention the pain from writing with dyspraxia (Due to poor muscle tone).  All of this on top of the new things they learn every week is extremely exhausting for him. 

Dyspraxia is so unrecognised, even some teachers don’t know much about it, I believe this should change.  There needs to be MUCH more awareness of the condition and earlier diagnosis to prevent people living with the condition with no support. Also with more awareness hopefully people will be more accepting of it and understand it.  

Fortunately Dyspraxia isn’t all bad, in fact sometimes its pretty great! Here’s a list of some famous people believed to have dyspraxia;

·      Cara Delevigne (Model)

·      Daniel Radcliffe (Harry potter)

·      David Bailey (Photographer)

·      Richard Branson

·      Albert Einstein 

Here’s a list of some of the good points of having dyspraxia;

·      We tend to be more creative 

·      Find our own ways to learn 

·      Have excellent determination

·      Have a great sense of humour

·      Empathetic

·      When we get motivated there is no stopping us

                                 

 Dyspraxics are not stupid. In fact quite the opposite, generally we are smarter than the average person! It’s due to the fact that with Dyspraxia we can be trapped in our own minds; we have a very complex system and this makes us very fascinating people that no one can even begin to imagine. What exactly goes on inside our heads? Personally I can’t imagine what happens in the head of non-Dyspraxics.

http://www.dyspraxicfantastic.com/the-positives/

                    

The other week Jay had a poem to learn from school, I sat for hours trying to help him learn it & he kept getting the same words wrong every time. Even when I said it 50 times (No exaggeration – I said it 50 times).  I was getting frustrated, he was getting frustrated and it wasn’t nice, so I decide to record me saying it on my phone and he took it upstairs to his bedroom and practiced reading it while listening to the phone, within about 15 minutes he learned the full poem perfectly.  He was then picked in the top 3 in his class & he was so proud of himself, like I was! This is a great example of having our own way to learn.  

If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend its full life thinking it’s stupid – I love this quote, it’s so true.  Schools & society make us feel bad about not being good at certain things, we are all so different why do we get taught the same things in the same way & why does society expect the same from us?

I wish things were different, I don’t want my son growing up thinking he is not as good as others or anything negative.  He is amazing, he has the best imagination and character to go with it.  At first he seems shy and withdrawn but he just takes a while to let his guard down (I think this is because he needs to trust people and trust them not to pick on his weaknesses). Once that guard is down he lets you into his world, he could talk for hours (I mean hours solid and not stop) and tell you his ideas, he jumps from topic to topic and some of the things he says are pure genius, things people take until they are in their 20’s to realise he understands at 8, yet he can’t tie his shoe laces or hold a pencil the correct way.  I love to ask him questions like “what would you do if you were Prime Minister” he tells me his fascinating ideas and gives such valid reasons. 

The organisation is definitely the worst aspect for me, In particular the demand for the instant online world, getting messages at random times and not being prepared to reply really throws me off and I’ve ended up with a backlog of a crazy amount of unread emails and Facebook messages which I just don’t have the time or space in my head to go through.  

              Another big issue with Dyspraxia is being judged, even people that know we have it, find it so hard to understand.  

With Jay and I both having dyspraxia our lives are although maybe a little chaotic also very fun and full of good ideas of what to do, there’s certainly never a dull moment.  

I hope to do another blog about dyspraxia and coping strategies that have helped us, this initial blog was to highlight and raise awareness!  

In the mean time if you have read this blog and think you or your child may have Dyspraxia please visit - http://dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk for help with what to do next.

Please share to help raise awareness!