Compared to other specific learning difficulties, major research into dyspraxia – or developmental coordination disorder (DCD) as it is more formally known – has only begun fairly recently.
DCD is the term used to diagnose children who have motor skills substantially below what is expected for their age. They are not lazy, clumsy or unintelligent – in fact, their intellectual ability is in line with the general population – but they do struggle with everyday tasks that require coordination.
Take a typical boy with DCD: he is a bright and capable 10-year-old boy, but he struggles to tie his shoe laces and needs help to fasten the buttons on his school shirt. He can’t ride a bike and no one passes him the ball when he plays sports. His teacher has told his parents that while he is a clever and very able student, his handwriting is slow and difficult to read. He finds it hard to keep up in class or to complete his homework – and his performance at school is deteriorating.
Poor and slow handwriting. Fairly clumsy and less than good balance. Was always the last or next to last chosen for sports teams at school. Took till I was nearly 14 to ride a bike. Difficulty keeping home tidy .Difficulty ironing clothes. Difficulty with manual/practical tasks. So much fits.
I was so nearly that - the falls! the trips!
I’ve given up trying not to spill or drop stuff and it hasn’t increased the number of times I spill or drop things - almost no change at all
Dyspraxia, autistic traits, non verbal learning disorder,directional dyslexia ,and separate from those- aphantasia, are all things I can identify with.
A more holistic mental health service might have picked up on them, and got me the necessary help and support . It’s probably too late now at nearly 60.
There was a self test for this, standing with your eyes closed on one leg for a certain amount of time. There was something that you had to do with your arms, too, but I can’t remember what it is - I think extend them to either side and tilt your head backwards and stay that way for 6 seconds? But I can’t remember for sure.
Anyway, when I heard about the test, I thought the time required was so short that it was ridiculously easy to do. Then I tried it and lost my balance before a second was up. Then I became convinced it was so hard that anyone would fail it. I asked my sister to try it, and she failed, too, further confirming my belief. But everyone else we asked had no problem doing it at all.
I tried that (not far from the bed so I had something soft to land on) I started to tilt sideways very quickly
I think dyspraxia though is more than just a question of balance.
I have heard the balance test is associated with chances of being healthy in old age/risk of dementia.
I had 13 yes answers and 11 no answers. Got the same response, worth further investigation.
The static balance test was a self-screening test for developmental coordination disorder - inability to complete it was seen as a red flag for dcd/dyspraxia. I kmow there’s more to dyspraxia than balance, but the correlation between the two is very strong.
I wouldn’t have considered my sense of balance to be particularly bad - I can ride a bike! But apparently it is abysmal.
What age were when you first rode a bike? I was nearly 14. I got 14 yes.
I know my first school in Bangkok thought there were problems. I was tested for what was then called spastic in either 1962 or 63 when I was 5/6. The results were negative.
There were no further tests after that point and the matter of my “problems” was dropped.
I was 8 or 9. It required a lot of pressure from my parents. I didn’t learn to walk until I was about a year and a half old, and was close to a year old before I learned to crawl. Always picked last for sports in school, terrible dancer, all that.
Anyway, while I said that I wouldn’t have considered my sense of balance to be particularly bad, I learned through the balance tests that it’s apparently awful
