Patti's Padded Room

What is Dyspraxia?

People have been asking me what is Dyspraxia?

So I've been sending them video's from you tube of other people with Dyspraxia and trying to thing how could I explain it myself.

I can't really tell you everything about Dyspraxia it is a neurologically based motor planning disorder and everybody’s symptoms are different because everyone is different and uses their brain differently. Dyspraxia which in the US can also be called apraxia frequently coexists with one or more other diagnosis or symptoms such as Autism, ADHD, hypotonia, Sensory Integration disorder, Dyslexia,Ext.

My 5 year old son and I both have Dyspraxia and our symptoms are not the same. I’m going to explain my symptoms which are more global and multifaceted and my son’s which affected his speech early on but like me also affects his movements.

My life with dyspraxia

Some day's are awesome normal nothing bad happens and everything goes fine and then BAM! I have to think very hard about everything I do or its hard to walk because I have to think really hard about where my feet are at all time's, I’m falling down all the time, its very hard to walk up and down the steps without falling, Playing sports is nearly impossible for me because I have little or no balance~coordination (how are you going to concentrate on the ball when you have to concentrate on where your feet are going or fall down), I’m constantly dropping things (Things just seem to fly out of my hands), When I was a child it was very hard for me to do the simplest things like tying my shoe's, riding a bike, holding utensil's and pen's, because of this it has affected my handwriting and spelling and there usually just crap no matter how much I try (I do a lot of googling for words and spell check handwriting I think my brain just get tired of thinking about what my hand is doing with my pen.), I find it very hard sometimes to concentrate or focus on things even if there just simple things the littlest thing can distract me but sometime I over focus on a certain a thing or task (makes it hard to organize things I start doing something and oh I have to go do something else over here and that other thing never gets done), I appear to have sensory integration dysfunction as well as I am very sensitivity to light and certain sounds gives me migraine headaches most of the time, I think my dyspraxia may be the reason for my night blindness (I try not to drive at night it just very hard to see) ,My dyspraxia affects my speech too in that I keep getting words mixed up but I may also be affected by aphasia as I sometimes can’t find the words in my brain at all. Its very hard for me to sleep sometimes because my brain just forgets to shut down and is constantly running makes it hard to sleep when everything running though your head at once and it just won't turn off no matter how hard you try, My memory is crap (I really do forget everything my Mother says I forget everything because I'm trying so hard not to forget something),This also I think this affects my sense of direction (If someone gives me directions to somewhere I'm always getting lost I always have to have someone take me where I want to go for it to stay in my head and sometimes I forget that to!) Having been affected by the various diagnosis I have has been difficult for me. I was told by some teacher's that I was stupid (yes they did tell me this straight to my face!)because I couldn't read! (It wasn't that I couldn't read it was that as soon as they made me stand in front of the class to read my mind went blank!) when they tested me for Junior high they told my mother they where shocked because the tests showed I had a college reading level! (all my Elementary teachers had told them that I couldn't read at all!)

Dyspraxia to me feels like a flareup something I can't control its very frustrating it goes away it comes back goes away comes back. Between the dyspraxia, aphasia The information is sometimes right there in my head but I just can't access it till later almost like a computer web site shutting down to do updates! (ACCESS DENIED TRY AGAIN LATER)

There is no cure for Dyspraxia. But Dyspraxia and any coexisting diagnosis can all be helped! That's why it so important for Parent,Teacher,Doctors and anyone that comes in contact with children to educate themselves about childhood disorder's and leaning disability's to help them as soon as possible!

My son did not talk until he was 4 years old when he did talk you could not understand a word he was saying (Now he talks like crazy and most of the time I can't shut him up you can even under stand almost all of what he's saying and he's only been in speech therapy for 2 years!), these caused a excessive amount of temper tantrum's because he couldn't communicate the way he wanted to, between the age of 17 months and 3 years he was in the emergency room with stitches and broken bone's 8 time's most of the time just from tripping over his feet and running into things! His Doctor kept telling me that he would grow out of it! We went though countless hearing and eye tests the Doctor finally sent us too after I kept coming in and saying something has to be wrong he can't even walk 2 steps without falling on his face!, All the tests came up fine almost 20/20 vision and no hearing loss! Doctor's said he needs speech therapy but your insurance don't cover it! NO ONE TOLD ME ABOUT EARLY INTERVENTION! No one told me I could have gotten him Speech, Occupational and Physical therapy right away ,if I had him tested with the school's Early Intervention! I finally just walked in and started talking to teachers one day they said oh yes we test kids to see if there ready for kindergarten,took a wonderful Early Intervention teacher to tell me this is what is wrong and we can help him! I didn't know any of this until I started looking things up on the computer more and not everyone has a computer or the resources to look these things up! THESE PARENTS, CHILDREN , AND ADULTS WITH DISORDER'S NEED HELP THEY NEED TO KNOW THERE IS HELP OUT THERE AND THEY ARE NO ALONE!

I hope this helps you understand a little about Dyspraxia and other learning disorders. All children are special there the only future we have! Please do not leave any of them behind and lost because your not education yourself! Please be Aware!

Copyright PJackman