10 tips for parents and teachers to help dyspraxic kids

1. Teach them to totally understand time.

   Because these kids do not always perceive properly, time is not a constant for them and one minute can actually “be” a lot shorter than another. They have to know the length of a minute and an hour. So time things, count in seconds, watch a second hand go round the clock and keep doing these until the child can predict when a minute, 5 mins, and hour etc finishes. Dyspraxic adults can end up in permanent day care because they are unable to understand time properly and sort out their days by themselves.

2. Keep a diary of what the child needs and has to do every day at school and prepare the day before.

   Teachers and parents should check that the kid has correctly entered details in this diary as these kids are not always totally aware of what has been going on and this is not their fault.

3. Time how long tasks take and always leave more time than this to do a task.

   These kids panic because they do not believe they can complete something on time or because they try to complete a task in insufficient time. When these kids panic they can get into a real state very quickly so you have to do anything you can to prevent this from happening.

4. Do lots of activities involving hand eye and body coordination.

   These should include catching and throwing, kicking, crawling through obstacle courses, climbing, standing on wobble boards (see Dsypraxia a guide for parents and teachers), walking on planks while holding objects and sporting activities. This helps correct the perception problems and the neural pathways in the brain, and the kid will then do better academically and socially.

5. Try to keep routines and order constant from day to day.

   When you have perception problems the world becomes scary if it keeps changing. These kids take some time to learn the routines and learn that they work. If this changes then they get scared that time will run out or things will get forgotten. If you have to change routine then try to do in consultation with the kid.

6. Try to keep the contents of their world in the same place.

   These kids take a long time to learn where their world and its contents are in space and how they relate to these. When these things move then they get scared because they may not notice and run into them or just not cope with the change. If you have to move items or his/her desk, bed, or toys etc. do it in consultation with the kid.

7. Neither Developmental Motor Dyspraxia nor Verbal Dyspraxia can be cured or overcome by giving the child amphetamines.

   Please do not give these kids drugs.

8. Help them establish friends, prevent bullying and cope socially through role-play.

   Because of their perception problems these kids miss some information, reactions and body language. This makes it hard for them to “read” people and situations well. Also they often seem clumsy and awkward and this attracts bullies. They have to be prepared for situations and learn by acting situations out in advance. This is specially needed to cope with bullies.

9. Teach in a tactile multi sensory way.

   You have to involve as much of the brain, attention and thinking as possible in a teaching situation. If you merely tell them something then they might not “hear” all of the words, but if you tell them, show them and encourage them to do it all at the same time, then they are much less lightly to miss information - as are all kids.

10. Work with their strengths.

    These kids are creative, sensitive and very caring. They spend a lot of time living in their own heads and inventing and creating things. They also learn to develop their own ways of doing things. These ideas should be encouraged and used. It is far too easy to spend most of a child’s time catching up with and focusing on his/her weaknesses.

For more information and help please read “Dyspraxia – a Guide for Parents and Teachers” by Dawn Matthews
Or go to www.learningdifficulties.com.au

1 comment July 16th, 2008

Verbal Dyspraxia

Spencer has been showing more signs of motor dyspraxia as well. Last year is when we really started to notice it. For example: he couldn’t tie his shoe laces tight enough to remain tied, he couldn’t button or snap his jeans, his handwriting was poor and he would complain of his hand hurting, etc. We had him in OT for about 3 months and all of these were fixed or had improved enough for our insurance company to say that his problems didn’t warrant any more therapy. He hasn’t had any OT since July and so far he’s doing fine. I haven’t seen any regression anyway.

We had him evaluated through the school system last year to see if he would qualify for any type of help from them and he didn’t. He definitely has problems staying focused and attending to his tasks, but he doesn’t have ADD or ADHD. His IQ is average to above average in most areas and even superior in a couple. His speech is intelligible enough so they won’t work with him on that and in order for a child to receive OT through the school they first have to have a primary problem (like speech) !!

Continue Reading Add comment September 28th, 2007

Is your child ‘Dyspraxic’?

I have created a set of three tick box tests to help you identify whether your child or pupil is dyspraxic. They are divided from each other by age.

Continue Reading 12 comments January 24th, 2007

Verbal Dyspraxia

Not every child who is late learning to talk or understand language has verbal dyspraxia. In fact very few have. Verbal dyspraxia is a very specific learning disability and I have found that most also have Developmental Motor Dyspraxia.

Continue Reading 25 comments December 19th, 2006

Explaining Dyspraxia

Far too often, when trying to describe dyspraxia, the simplicity of the learning disorder gets lost in a cloud of scientific words and labels, in the same way as it can with dyslexia. I will try to keep everything very simple.
Dyspraxia is generally broken down into two types, Developmental Motor Dyspraxia  (DMD) and Verbal Dyspraxia

Continue Reading 3 comments December 18th, 2006

What’s in a name? Dysgraphia and Dyscalculia

Last week I had (yet another) mother phone me because her child had been diagnosed as having “Dysgraphia”.

“Can you help my child?” she asked. I’m used to this now and I always say, “first I would have to assess the child to establish what causes his problems”.
“He’s got Dysgraphia she repeated.” And she had every right to expect that this was a good and useful diagnosis, after all she had paid over $300 for it.

But in fact labelling a child as “dysgraphic” is not a useful diagnosis because it tells us nothing about how that child learns or how best to teach that child.

Continue Reading 5 comments December 17th, 2006