Dyspraxia

What is dyspraxia?

Definition: A neuro-development disorder which affects motor planning in children and adults. This can be the motor planning of fine or gross motor skills or the planning required for speech.

The two types of dyspraxia

Global dyspraxia
Verbal dyspraxia

1. Global dyspraxia

Affects the whole body
Affects the motor planning of gross motor and fine skills for example, may have trouble catching and throwing a ball or doing handwriting
Can have clumsiness/difficulty with balance and co-ordination
Takes longer to learn a new skill, e.g. riding a bike
Can impact on dressing, eating and self care.

2. Verbal dyspraxia (sometimes called Apraxia)

Affects the ability to speak
Affects planning and programming of speech sounds, syllables, words and sentences
Can be two types – putting in extra sounds or omitting sounds when speaking
Their understanding is better than their talking ability
Their connected speech can be very hard to understand
Consistently inconsistent in how they say words for example may say too four different ways
Limited range of letter sounds and distorted vowels
Difficulty with smooth movement between sound and words
The “music” of the voice is changed/flat

Verbal dyspraxia does not come from

The child being lazy or naughty
Delayed speech
Having weak muscles
Their environment

How is behaviour affected?

There can be frustration and anxiety
It impacts on self esteem and their ability to interact socially with others
They can react strongly to changes in routine
Can be more likely to play alone.

How is learning affected?

Affects handwriting
Hard to follow routine and instructions
Hard to understand and follow the rules of games
Can become fidgety
Takes longer to process information

Other facts

Can co-exist with other learning difficulties
A person with verbal dyspraxia will see a speech therapist for help
A person with global dyspraxia will see an Occupational Therapist/Physio for help.

What will help the student?

What works

Your relationship with the student will help them reduce their anxiety
Provide a routine
Allow extra time for processing
Associate tactile and visual symbols with sounds (multi sensory learning)
A little bit and often
Repetition, repetition, repetition
Patience
They are visual based learners so back up verbal information with visual information, for example, visual timetables

Programmes that can support dyspraxic learners

Nuffield Dyspraxia Program is one approach
Making words with other programs
- Flip Charts
- Moving Across Syllables click here
- Kaufman Speech To Language Protocol

Classroom accommodations suggestions

Useful links

Part of this information was provided from a presentation by Ross Harland, Ministry of Education