What is dyspraxia?

Dyspraxia is also known as Developmental Coordination Disorder. It’s a form of neurodivergence.

Us dyspraxics were born with it, we didn’t acquire it through environmental factors.

Dyspraxia is primarily characterised by difficulties with fine motor skills (e.g. threading a needle or tying shoelaces) and gross motor skills (e.g. riding a bike or throwing a cricket ball from the boundary to the wicketkeeper). It can severely impact coordination, balance, and visual-spatial awareness.

It’s also associated with verbal fluency (particularly when the dyspraxic person is already fatigued), sequencing, planning, and organisation.

The DSM diagnostic criteria are as follows.

A) Significantly poorer performance with fine and gross motor skills in relation to the individual’s age and opportunity to acquire these skills.

B) Without accommodations, the poor motor skills significantly and persistently impair on activities of daily living or academic achievement.

C) Symptoms are (or were) apparent during early childhood.

D) The deficits in motor skills are not better explained by other factors, such as a learning disability, sensory impairment, or neurological impairments of mobility such as cerebral palsy.

My own note: in terms of criterion A, it is about motor skills in general. A dyspraxic person may find surprising exceptions. My gross motor skills, for example, are generally poor, yet I was picked for the school football team. My daughter’s fine motor skills are generally poor, yet she enjoyed building Lego sets during childhood.