What is your job?

[Tom fod]

I work in a warehouse currently. I was told by my parents that I had dyspraxia and it always made complete sense because I do display all the symptoms and makes sense why I've always had trouble in organising my life and had to always develop strategies to help me. It was only apparent to me when I was told by work I would have to pass reach truck training in order to keep my job that I went back to my doctor to get paperwork on my dyspraxia only to find I'd never been officially diagnosed. Only thing I have is a physiotherapy from when I was 9 years old stating that my gross and fine motor skills, co ordination were well below average that 99% would have scored higher than me. Also that I have reduced core stability, spacial awareness, body awareness, ability to judge timing and grade force, bad balance. It's stressed me out so much because I went through all the training and did the test but failed after only completing 10% of the test. I tried but I couldn't do it with so many steps, different levers, steering the wrong way, bad judgement when trying to work out if the forks were tilted or not (they were, I thought they were straight) and generally trying to co ordinate my movements and remembering the order of which levers to use for what and when and doing this whilst having a pallet high up in the air trying not to cause a safety incident knowing that I could easily **** it up I might move the wrong lever because I mix them up. Now I've been referred to occupation health and see where I go from there but I'm worried because I've never had an official dygonosis but my parents always told me I had dyspraxia and I show all the symptoms but I heard it's much harder to get diagnosed as an adult without paying for it privately.

Hi

Did you mention the position your employer had placed you in to your doctor and what did they say?

It Iis regrettably true that getting confirmation of Dyspraxia via the NHS is v difficult or impossible. The other option is to declare to your employer that you believe you have dyspraxia and that disability is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act and see if they'll fund assessment through Occupational Health. In Adults Dyspraxia falls into a gap between neurological condition and specific learning difficulty (learning disability is something else)

ACAS, Job Centre Plus and/or other Orgs can advise further though you may simply decide it's better to just walk away from this employer.

[charris97]

I was first told it would be a requirement when I was converted to a permanent contract back at the end of May. Which when I promptly contacted my doctor's surgery to get information on it before realising I never had a diagnosis.

However, my colleagues around me kept telling me not to worry because in my actual day to day job, I could do so many things within the department and much more useful as a problem solver and have me helping doing various ad hoc tasks within the department and giving them ideas and helping sort things than being put on a reach truck. So I kind of just left it and stopped thinking about it just praying to get past my probation period without being called up for training. After I passed my probation, I thought I'd be safe from it. It turns out, I was not.

I remembered I got private medical insurance via my work so tried using the go service for that to get refferrell for a dyspraxia assessment but found out it wasn't covered under the private medical insurance so now trying to get a normal gp appointment.

I think I was just over worrying to be honest. Now I've talked to a couple of other people in the warehouse who had an issue with doing reach truck and got refferred to occupational health. Also found out you don't even need an official diagnosis of dyspraxia for it to be protected under the equality act, I got told by one of the other people who got refferred to occupational health, if you can explain your impairment and how it genuinely affects you because its something you cannot help and also the fact it's pretty clear when someone is genuinely trying and someone who is just purposely failing so therefore they can't do anything about it.

I have a bad habit of overthinking, over worrying and over stressing about almost everything

[Tom fod]

Your colleagues give sound advice.
I think so many of us are prone to overthinking with Dyspraxia! All the better to describe the grisly potential for accidents to put them off insisting you be let loose on a reach truck about the place, (if you were able to safely pass the stringent operator training and test)!

If you were to categorically tell them (or the Reach Truck training people) that due to your condition (whether confirmed or unconfirmed) that you did not feel you had the capability to operate the equipment safely, it would not go in your employers' favour if they dismissed you and you subsequently took them to an Employment Tribunal for Unfair Dismissal.

Dyspraxia (covered under the definition of disability used by the Equality Act 2010) falls more under the category of specific learning difficulty (Distinct from Learning Disability) Slavishly pursuing the Medical/Healthcare route often means people ignore other potentially more fruitful avenues, like their Employers own Occupational Health provision. It is still worth asking your GP just in case, by some miracle they do have an Adult pathway or will give you a letter strongly advising that you should not be forced into learning to/or be expected to operate a Reach Truck.

https://www.britsafe.org/publications/s ... -accident/

[WilliamR]

I have almost completed my third week in a new job at Harrogate Hospital. I am a Booking Administrator for the Community Dental Service, based in an outbuilding of the hospital. There is one hell of a lot to take in - you really have to concentrate hard, which is difficult in the heat - but the work is interesting and the environment is good. The staff are friendly and approachable. I feel my talents are being utilised more than in previous jobs. I don't drive, but the buses aren't difficult at all as I live in Harrogate. There's a lot to learn with the booking system, but I'm getting there. I'm sure I'll breathe a little easier when induction is completed!

[Tom fod]

I have almost completed my third week in a new job at Harrogate Hospital. I am a Booking Administrator for the Community Dental Service, based in an outbuilding of the hospital. There is one hell of a lot to take in - you really have to concentrate hard, which is difficult in the heat - but the work is interesting and the environment is good. The staff are friendly and approachable. I feel my talents are being utilised more than in previous jobs. I don't drive, but the buses aren't difficult at all as I live in Harrogate. There's a lot to learn with the booking system, but I'm getting there. I'm sure I'll breathe a little easier when induction is completed!

Congratulations on your new job and glad to hear things are going well.

[ShrubRush]

I'm an English Teacher in an autism-specialist school, working with the secondary school. I find break and lunch duty the hardest times of day as there are the most people around and the most movement, but the small class sizes when I'm actually teaching work well for me. Whenever I have to get between a physical altercation, I always feel a bit useless due to my awful procedural memory and difficulty initiating physical tasks (executive functioning difficulties combined with poor proprioception and co-ordination don't lend themselves well to breaking up sudden fights). That being said, I do think I'm a good teacher and I don't have any issues with timekeeping or lesson planning as we're so clear on schedules at all times, but I struggle to do my marking as it means managing lots of separate books/pieces of paper and there's no real way to adapt marking books to a digital format so it's all handwritten. I can find it hard to relate to some of our sports-driven students as I don't understand football, even if I'm just watching it, there are too many people moving at once and too many rules to remember. The trade-off with that is that I like to think I'm good with a lot of the students who are easy to overlook by virtue of the fact that sport is so central to the school, so I often get called to support our quieter students when they're having difficulty.

In terms of adjustments, I have a few formal workplace adjustments in place in accordance with the OT report, and a few less formal things that 'help out'. My formal adjustments include having a risk assessment in place surrounding physical interventions (which basically says that I can RPI in emergencies if necessary, but should swap out ASAP with another member of staff and support verbally) and sports activities (I'm not to be used for duties around managing students who are playing sports). I also receive a couple of extra PPA sessions each week for planning and receive extra support from our EdPsych and my line manager for behaviour management in our tougher classes. Informal adjustments include receiving forewarning of any planned fire drills/other loud noises so that I can manage sensory sensitivities, and a pass to take a break from whole staff meetings if I'm becoming overwhelmed.

In truth, I really enjoy my work and it gives me a real sense of purpose. That being said, I always feel terrible looking at how untidy my classroom is (though, the TA is equally responsible for that, and I have asked him to put up backing paper on my noticeboard a few times now...) and how poorly-kept my students' books are, and I'm always forgetting things around the place. I wish my head was on a bit straighter, where that's concerned, and I'm worried about how I'll manage in a mainstream setting, as I'll have to do a six-week placement at one soon as part of my training.