Dyspraxic Adults

I have only just found out that I might have dyspraxia and I'm still trying to figure things out. I'm also an Occupational Therapy student who is currently on clinical placement. I'm so frustrated because it's following the same pattern as everything else, up until now everything has been going well. I have spent a long time working on my verbal communication so I'm actually really good at interacting with others. But, when it comes time to sit down and either write down what I know or to have an oral assessment about what I know I can't get the info out of my brain!!! I know that the information is in there but it's locked in and I can't get it across to anyone in a way that they get.
So I get on well with the staff etc but it looks like I don't bother producing any work and I'm scared they all think I'm a lazy slacker but in reality I'm constantly working myself to tears trying to write things down etc but it takes hours to produce even one paragraph and it doesn't even make sense. It's always been like this, I've always been treated like I'm either lazy or just stupid. I'm scared to get an assessment in case I don't have dyspraxia and I am just dumb.

Is this dyspraxia? Is this something other people here experience. One of the most frustrating things this time is that I might have an answer for why it's happening,but no way of making it better.

Please help, I know I'm not stupid and I'm close to giving up because i can't get my brain to work properly.

Hi Robyn
You're not dumb or stupid and I can confirm I've felt like you have at varying times in my life too. The stress of performing and being haunted by previous bad experiences and our brains reminding us only of past failings seems to be part and parcel for a significant number of dyspraxics.

I'm not sure on the degree of ease of getting an assessment for Dyspraxia in NZ or what post assessment support is available? You seem to have an appreciation that assessment for dyspraxia can be something of a blunt instrument

Does your college/employer have a welfare or disability team you could speak to? I appreciate there is often a stigma for people working in Health care talking about their own impairments but no one wants for this to break you.

Hi!

I'm another Allied Health Student whose dyspraxia has a big impact on performance on clinical placement. I'd recommend talking to your university/college's disability department to see about assessment and support - it might be different as I'm in the UK but that's how I got assessed and even if you aren't diagnosed with dyspraxia, they might be able to find another diagnosis that suits better. I didn't even know what dyspraxia was when I spoke to them - just talk to them about your difficulties and give them the sort of information you'd gather from a patient on your placement, and they'll refer you for whatever tests they think are relevant.

In the meantime, talk to your practice educators about what's going on, and tell them you're seeking assessment through the uni. Without fail, my practice educators have been amazing about helping me learn what adjustments I'll need in the workplace and putting them in place for me, but they can't help you if they don't know what's going on.

In terms of what I've found helps me on placement - for oral assessment I say "I know the answer, can I have a minute to form my response?", I ask if I can work in a quiet room if the office gets too busy/distracting, I script responses for sessions so my processing delay doesn't impact on responding to clients, and I use a folder with dividers for my resources during sessions and put everything away once it's been used. In terms of formatting clinical notes - can you ask to look at your practice educator's notes and use that as a template? Hope some of that might be useful for you?