Help with understanding dyspraxia

[billie2309]

Hi everyone. I'm new to the site and not to long ago i got diagnosed with dyspraxia, dyslexia and possible ADD (which was surprising as i'm a girl), but i have no idea what dyspraxia is. All i can seem to understand from it is that it may affect my learning to drive, but no one really explained anything else to me. I guess i'm just stuck in limbo to be honest, i'm at university and waiting for a needs assessment but other than that i don't understand what it all means and it's really bugging me.
I guess i just want to really understand what is it, how does it affect me and maybe help me understand and see things in my personality that are the cause of it.
Any help/advice would be great.
thank you x

[Shadwell]

hi billie, Welcome to the forum.

as far as Dyspraxia goes, then it is things like hand-eye co-ordination so things like writing, doing things with your hands like tying shoe laces, driving, escalators, walking on uneven ground like stones on the beach so you can't walk as fast as someone else. carrying things like fluid, playing ball games like catch.

speach is another one that it can affect, other things is like judging distances, so that also comes under things like driving for stopping a car safely, or bumping into door frames, things like walking and miss judging a kerb height, so you step higher, or not enough.

but while some people are worse than others in one or more areas,

Dyspraxia can very sometimes quite rapidly from person to person. and can very differently on somethings less for one person than say everybody else.

with about 2% of the people diagnosed with Dyspraxia being extremely Dyspraxic.

you might be better looking at web-sites like Dyspraxia Foundation, and there they can explain key points. and then you will see things like when going through key stages of growing up, like learning to walk before crawling, as it requires both hands and feet to work in unison. whereas walking only requires maybe one hand to hold onto furnature.

[Captain_Ludd]

Hi Billie,

Basically Dyspraxia is a neurological Impalement of the a ability to organize, both thoughts and movements. I think its caused by immaturity centered around the limbic system but don't quote me on that.
As Shadwell says this will manifest itself physically mainly as poor co-ordination, fine motor control and spatial awareness, making us appear clumsy to others.
It also has psychological effects because the differences in the make-up of our brains, most Dyspraxics tend to be poorly organised and "Scatter brained" (I know I am) and tend to struggle when processing certain forms of information.
We also tend to become more easily anxious and stressed than most, some Dyspraxics can struggle to varying degrees with social interaction and are sometimes perceived as a bit "weird" or "different".
Its not all bad though, Dyspraxia has nothing to do with intelligence just the way we learn, and its very common for us to have very creative minds and be able to think "outside the box" (I hate that term but it seems to fit), we also tend to be more empathetic than most (although I'm not sure that's me but hay ho)

Hope that's of some help

[Jim]

I'd head to the dyspraxia foundation website and find the not insignificant list of associated symptoms and see how many you can relate to. Understanding dyspraxia is a challenge since even (especially) the experts still don't really understand it.

Therefore you're better off understanding yourself.

The "thinking outside of the box" phrase is very cliche. But it's not far wrong. People who have learning difficulty (not worlds different to mental illness perhaps) tend to have a different perception on reality to the "society norm". I once described it to a apparently healthy and non affected person like observing a conversation from outside the window. You're not getting the same signal as the people the other side of the window and therefore are likely to interpret it differently. That doesn't make that interpretation wrong though.

[rodge1991]

I recommend looking on this site:

http://www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/s ... praxia.php

and in case you still wondering about it, this is a link to my page about Dyspraxia:

http://www.dyspraxicfantastic.com/livin ... dyspraxia/