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UK Motor Skills Masterclass
The Daily Telegraph, October 11, 2003
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Your son is
bright, inquisitive, articulate. But, as his school career
progresses, his teachers begin to notice that he struggles in
certain things.
"He found it terribly hard to organize himself in daily life,"
says Emma Caderni of her seven-year-old son, Ned.
"At play, he had poor ball skills and co-ordination. In class,
although he was one of the best readers and his mind seemed to
go at 90 mph, it took him a lot of painful effort to produce
very little writing, and he was put off by the fact that his
friends wrote faster and better."
Schools now find it hard to ignore dyslexia. But dyspraxia, a
separate specific learning difficulty, also called
"developmental co-ordination delay", is far less widely
recognized. Once called "clumsy-child syndrome", it affects four
times as many boys as girls - and at least seven per cent of the
population.
A key theory is that dyspraxia arises when certain reflexes have
not developed at the right time. Many dyspraxic children never
crawled as babies, but bottom-shuffled instead. Later, they do
not develop a clear preference for left or right-handedness.
They have trouble with postural stability, finding it hard to
balance, and are constant fidgeters.
However, the condition can be particularly difficult to identify
in bright children, who compensate in a number of ways. "The
school was slow - as were we - to pick up on it," says Helen
Scales of her 10-year-old daughter, Katherine. "She was covering
her tracks and producing just enough work. The teachers just
thought she should work faster.
"Finally, we decided to have her assessed. The educational
psychologist insisted that both parents be there for the
feedback. It's common for the mother to be keen to follow her
instincts to have something checked, and for the father to be
resistant"
Katherine, it turned out, had a considerable gap between her
high verbal score on the IQ test and her performance score,
which is the part to do with ordering, sequencing and spatial
organization. She scored particularly poorly on the sections
that measure gross and fine motor skills - in other words, she
is clumsy.
So, once you have a diagnosis of dyspraxia, what next? Sharon
Drew, co-director of the Dyscovery Centre, a specialist unit in
Cardiff, emphasizes that, from the age of about six, children
become increasingly aware if they are different from other
children.
"There are two paths the child can then take," she says. "Either
'I'm rubbish at something, so I won't try' or, 'I have a problem
and I can do something about it'. It's crucial to focus on what
children can do well, not just on what they can't.
'Teachers need to pay attention to such issues as how the child
is sitting, whether he can see the board without having to turn
round and if he can use a laptop for note-taking and homework.
Dyspraxic children have a far better chance of producing what
they are capable of with the help of a keyboard," says Sharon
Drew.
"They can also be functioning in 'fight or flight' mode all day
at school because everything takes more effort, so you can get a
conflicting picture of a child being good at school and
exploding at home."
As an occupational therapist, Sharon Drew helps dyspraxic
children to practice their motor skills. She is an advocate of
low-tech, low-cost methods that children enjoy: balloons filled
with rice are good for catching practice (the child can hear
them coming); clapping bubbles is good for hand-eye
co-ordination practice, while stamping on them improves eye-foot
co-ordination; and wriggling through small hoops replicates the
movements children need to dress themselves.
"We looked at a range of treatment approaches," says Emma
Caderni. "Exercise programs have helped improve Ned's balance,
and equipping him with a laptop has made a real difference.
Also, cooking is great for a dyspraxic child because it needs
lots of sequencing and organizing."
Ten-year-old Peter Morton says: "Before I had help, I thought I
was useless at everything - writing, maths, running, catching.
After I had help, I felt I'd got a lot better at everything."
His father, James, says: "Good schools are recognizing dyspraxia.
But if your child's school sends him away with a pat on his head
and tells you not to worry, it is time to get an independent
assessment."
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