The word Dyspraxia - was it actually used 30 years ago?

[George H]

From what I know, the word Dyspraxia has only been in common use since around the mid 1990s, and I doubt that even doctors and consultants used the word much prior to the early 1990s.

In 2008 I managed to obtain copies of my child development records, mostly from around the time when I attended a support group on Friday afternoons circa June 1984 (which meant that my weekends away from school had started a couple of hours earlier than the rest of my class!) There were over 150 pages of them, so one can imagine the difficulties I had back then.

Looking back at the notes, the consultant in charge at the time referred to "Clumsy Child Syndrome" in the notes, which I believe was her way of mentioning Dyspraxia, but even back then, I doubt that she knew the name of it, and she was a senior doctor.

I have access to The Times, Sunday Times, and other newspaper websites online, and I typed in the words "Dyspraxia" and "Dyspraxic", just to see how often the words were used in those newspapers, and it's interesting that the earliest use of the word in The Times was in the mid to late 1990s. The Sunday Times had one mention in 1986, and that was it until the mid 1990s. And with the other website, I don't think I saw anything before 2000, but then again, the archive was not all complete.

I have a feeling that the word Dyspraxia would have been so obscure back in the 1980s that one would more likely to have heard it mentioned on a programme like Call My Bluff or something rather than a medical programme.

I know that the first mention of Asperger Syndrome in The Times was in 1992, before I was diagnosed, when autism was mentioned as early as around 1964.

It's just interesting that the word Dyspraxia hasn't really been a word known to people including specialists until around 20 years ago.

[Tom fod]

The Dyspraxia Foundation (in the UK) were established in 1988. Believe term was coined prior to that and iirc I think I found a reference to 1948 though it would not have been in common usage or understood/accepted by many.

[GallusLass]

There were wonderful things going on in County Durham in the late 80s / early 90s. Most schools there tailored their physical education to fit the needs of dyspraxic children. It was a really pioneering approach

[DDIGITALDNR]

Even as a adult they would list all the symptoms but never used the word Dyspraxia or DCD, first time I heard it used was a disability advisor at the Job Centre as his own child had similar problems to me.

Nobody has ever found my child development records, the council had a copy but purged their records shortly after I left school. My GP has always had very little information. My parents were told I had no dominant side to my brain and I was often misdiagnosed with cerebral palsy.

[Tom fod]

I suspect that while medical opinion is/was often sought the identification/conclusion of Dyspraxia may have often come from an Educational Psychologist and this may not have been forwarded to the GP and been incorporated into peoples' Medical notes.

[michael_siddall]

No in Australia in 1980s it was known as Minimal Motor Dsyfunction

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25026043/

My records are plastered with the term

It was confusing as it has a lot of different names

Michael

[Tom fod]

The nomenclature is very confusing and and not always agreed upon between Medical clinicians/those working in Educational Special Needs. It wasn't really that known in the UK in the 80s either! The Dyspraxia Foundation (formerly the Dyspraxia Trust) was only established in 1988.

There seems to be some confusion as to who and where the term was first coined. In international clinical circles the term Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is favoured. Quite a few in the affected community are not necessarily that happy with DCD.

It has also previously been referred to as Minimal Brain Damage and Clumsy Child Syndrome, so I guess there has been a degree of enlightenment?

https://dcdaustralia.org.au/dyspraxia/

https://dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/abou ... ia-glance/