Driving, Dyspraxia and Getting Diagonisis

[nervousdriver91]

Hello all,
The past few months i've been doing driving lessons however after struggling for a very long time with manual, both me and my instructor decided I just wasnt getting anywhere, I done a few in automatic and even found that a struggle, a bit less of a struggle however still a struggle.

I spoke to my mum about why i'm finding it so difficult when everyone else finds it so easy and we spoke about my co-ordination, we have both always said my co-ordination has been a bit off, never to the point it had bothered me. In fact I always made a joke of the bad co-ordination, no rythem/etc..I had, never affected my life till I started to learn to drive, even at school I was never diagonised with any learning problems/difficulties.

However thinking about the driving lessons and bad co-ordination skills and this seemed to add up. I've also always suffered from anixety however this has ran in my family and again coped with it well and thought nothing of it until I read this can also be a dyspraxia symptom. So many small things all seemed to make sense once I read up on dyspraxia symptoms but then again I thought if this was the case would I have not been diagonised at school or when I was younger? I'm 23 years old if I had Dyspraxia surely someone would have noticed by now? why is it just now i'm starting to find out this condition exsists and could have been potentially causing me minor problems all these years wtithout having a proper diagonisis.

I posted on a few driving forums and it lead me to the conculsion that this could be the answer i've been searching for as to why I just physically am incapable of driving. Even my instructor has asked me many times why I cant just do simple tasks to which my reply has always been I honestly do not know, but that gets more of an annoyed response from her because neither of us could work out what the underlying problem was. .

I've always struggled with knowing lefts and rights and simple stuff such as signal indicator I find difficult! Even after having had about 3 months of driving lessons, however in school english had always been my strongest subject, it just didnt make sense till I read up on the symptoms and felt so many I could relate to. I just wondered how I get more information on life with dyspraxia, how to get a diagonsis, also more information on how you adapted to driving with dyspraxia, any tips/tricks/etc.. that can help me, I dont know where to even begin looking at a potential diagonisis for this and what would happen once I have a diagonis, am I still legal to continue my driving lessons? what happens regarding the diagosis process. thank you all

[Tom fod]

Hi

Awareness of Dyspraxia is still comparatively low so it is quite common for it not to have been recognised/spotted. Some of us have coping strategies to get on with things whilst seeking to avoid being noticed. Thankfully at least in some quarters diversity is better appreciated, sadly not by everyone though. Dyspraxia has no bearing on intelligence levels and it is not in itself a bar to being allowed to drive. We just tend to think and approach things a bit differently

Obtaining a formal diagnosis is often not easy and quite a number of people here have yet to obtain a formal diagnosis. Some people invest their own money to obtain a private diagnosis. A lot of the professionals who can, tend to work mostly with children Check out our Getting Help and Assessment and Transport Sections including this thread http://www.dyspraxicadults.org.uk/forum ... =14&t=4813

You may wish to consider whether you might benefit from a change of driving instructor. The whole "Why can't you/I perform the simplest of tasks" is not going to help your focus or confidence levels.

[nervousdriver91]

Hi

Awareness of Dyspraxia is still comparatively low so it is quite common for it not to have been recognised/spotted. Some of us have coping strategies to get on with things whilst seeking to avoid being noticed. Thankfully at least in some quarters diversity is better appreciated, sadly not by everyone though. Dyspraxia has no bearing on intelligence levels and it is not in itself a bar to being allowed to drive. We just tend to think and approach things a bit differently

Obtaining a formal diagnosis is often not easy and quite a number of people here have yet to obtain a formal diagnosis. Some people invest their own money to obtain a private diagnosis. A lot of the professionals who can, tend to work mostly with children Check out our Getting Help and Assessment and Transport Sections including this thread http://www.dyspraxicadults.org.uk/forum ... =14&t=4813

You may wish to consider whether you might benefit from a change of driving instructor. The whole "Why can't you/I perform the simplest of tasks" is not going to help your focus or confidence levels.

Okay thank you for the advice, there should be more awareness as until I actually searched up the symptoms i'd never heard of dyspraxia and in the past its left a lot of confusion as to why my co-ordination is so off compared to everyone else and why I struggle with stuff like driving yet my theory test was fine. It all added up once I read the symptoms.

I am looking into other instructors, but in your opinion without an actual diagonisis should I tell them at the beginning I do think there is a potential possibility I could be dyspraxic or should I wait until a proper diagonisis to let them know?

[Tom fod]

Obtaining a formal diagnosis is often fraught with difficulties for the reasons stated in abundance on this forum. If you are comfortable self disclosure is of course an option, though some people quite understandably want/require a professional opinion.

It's not an easy answer as it's something you must decide for yourself. I'm sure there are driving instructors who won't judge and will look at your ability/competence rather than let their judgement be clouded by their idea/interpretation of what being dyspraxic might mean.

At the end of the day you will still need to one day satisfy an examiner that you make the grade, dyspraxia or no dyspraxia. Instructors will vary too and you need one who is patient and more on your wavelength. Maybe you could couch it more in terms you are nervous and that you found you were not getting along as well as you hoped with your previous instructor. Incidentally, how enlightened do you think your current instructor is? Could you broach the subject with them as a trial run? Explaining that you're a bit different is not exactly easy and doesn't always go down well or to plan.

I'm visually impaired and a non driver so worth seeing what other people have said on this topic in http://www.dyspraxicadults.org.uk/forum ... m.php?f=11

[screengreen]

Hey it took me 6 tests and more lessons than I care to remember to pass! I found working out strategies helped me.... things like the indicators move the Same way you turn the wheel, and initially to judge distance I counted the time till the cars got to me, this improved my confidence, I also played an arcade game which involved steering with a wheel braking and accelerating this helped too.