Neurodiversity Week Write up: Story#5
Published: 21 March 2025
Neurodiversity – a different challenge
This is the story of a parent with a neurodiverse child. In this case its probably one of the lesser known ones, its Dyspraxia.
Dyspraxia, also known as developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD), is a common disorder that affects movement and co-ordination. Dyspraxia does not affect your intelligence. It can affect your co-ordination skills – such as tasks requiring balance, playing sports or learning to drive a car.
This is the definition by the NHS in the UK.
That does sound rather bland and not much of an issue, but let me tell you, having a child grow up who is dyspraxic is not a walk in the park.
Our son showed difficulties from an early age. He was late walking; both his sisters were months ahead of him in this development trait. He was clumsy and often fell over or walked into things. He struggled to catch items and was limited in his dexterity when playing with baby toys etc.
However, none of these issues rang any bells with us as parents, we didn’t recognize any real difficulties, its only in hindsight that we look back and can identify these aspects of his abilities.
On going to school it was obvious he was bright, as bright as both his sisters, but again he struggled with writing and wasn’t really interested in reading until he was around 7 years old. His writing never really developed, it was always poor, by the age of 10, we decided he needed additional tuition to help him with his writing skills and we engaged a tutor to help. While this did improve for a while, once that was ended, his writing returned to a virtually illegible scrawl. He tried hard to improve to please his tutor, but it took a toll, so when he didn’t need to do it anymore, he reverted to his old style of writing.
Although it says above that dyspraxic people struggle with sports, he was not one of those. While ball and racket sports didn’t interest him (mainly because he struggled with controlling them), he was excellent at gymnastics and Karate and also enjoyed horse-riding. Those types of sport where body control was required rather than limb control were ones he could embrace and do well.
In fact, we found out after one Christmas, where he received a set of juggling balls, that he taught himself to juggle, being able to perform all sorts of tricks with the balls. He did this to overcome his own struggles with fine motor functions and to improve what he could through effort and training.
At the age of 14, following school advise he was reviewed by a specialist clinician who diagnosed dyspraxia. This had a massive effect. We were able to put a ‘name’ to the issues he’d faced. It also meant he got a lot of help in school, being able to use a computer to type his essays etc. He attended a touch-typing course and was able to type as fast as his school-mates could write with a pen and paper. His grades improved massively, and he got into the degree course of his choice. At university, he was given fantastic support and was provided with a wide range of accessibility services, to assist his under-graduate degree. He passed with a 2:2 and after a year of working in a lab he decided to go back to university to do his Master’s in law and subsequently his LPC qualification.
We have never doubted his ability to overcome these issues, and as he has grown older additional elements have been identified, but he is a capable, compassionate and gentle man, with a loving partner who makes us proud in everything he has achieved.
