I have been lurking on this forum for months and have only just plucked up the courage to join.
I apologise in advance as this will be a lengthy post.
I have had problems for as long as I can remember, with bumping in to things, tripping up. This was put down to me having flat feet.
When I was younger I had glasses and had to go and see an eye specialist monthly, who would make me pick things like beads out of the palm, they invariably ended up on the floor. She told my parents that all issues I had were to do with the fact I was a premature baby(born at 25 weeks) and would eventually grow out of it. All that happened was I stopped needing glasses at the age of 11. Due to wearing a patch since I was a baby, and having a corrective operation and regular eye tests.
But anyway, By the time I went to primary school all my short comings, such as not holding a pen correctly, being appalling at phonics and having illegible handwriting were once again put down to me being premature. Finally when I was in year 2 I had a teacher who recognised I had some issues, but seemed to excel at reading. One afternoon she brought in a lady that did a bunch of tests with me, like picking up beads, tying laces, directions, balancing on one foot. Nothing ever can of it as the following week, the teacher left to be with her family in Australia who was ill and she never came back.
I struggled on. Failed Recorder class due to the fact I kept confusing which hand should play which notes.
In my final year at high school I failed my cycling provision class twice as whenever I had to signal left or right I would confuse the two and or fall off my bike.
I struggled through High School. Excelled in English and French . Failed Maths . Constantly had to re-do work due to poor hand writing.
Got to college. second year. went on an outward bound course as part of a module I was doing for business. It was 5 days of hell. I came away with so many cuts and bruises it was unreal.
I also did drama. It then when my drama teacher was trying to teach us a choreographed sequence for our piece for our exam, the word dyspraxia was first used. I was having real trouble picking up what she was asking me to do. She stopped, starred at me for awhile, and said how long have you had dyspraxia? I replied I didn't have it. and she frowned and carried on.
The next time I heard it was while I was university. I had been referred to a speech therapist for a paralysed vocal cord (which I have had for twenty three years without it being diagnosed.) The first therapist I saw tried to show me an exercise which I just found impossible to do, after three weeks of this, she asks me again if I have dyspraxia. I say no, she replies oh, you definitely some dyspraxic tendencies. I have since had two operations on my throat,and am waiting for a third, I really struggle with the exercises my new speech therapist ( who is the head of the department.) gives me to do.
For the past four sessions we have worked on trying to stop me fidgeting and trying to co-ordinate my brain in to repeating the sound the the therapist is making.
At my last session on Wednesday I asked her if she thought i was dyspraxic , she said yes. So I asked her what I could do. She told me to go to my GP who is based in Manchester (whereas my speech issues are based in Derby) and get a referral to be tested. When I read the lists of symptoms I can tick at least 95% of them.But I have read posts on here and I am wondering if there is any point? I am 23 nearly finished Uni. and have struggled to get the 2:2 I am predicted to get, and I just wonder if it's too little too late or if it will help in the future?
Thanks for reading this, and any help/opinions would be greatly appreciated.
