How To Understand And Support Children With Dyspraxia - Lois Addy

How to understand and support children with dyspraxia is another in the How to... series of reference books for teachers and teaching assistants of which I am such a fan.

Dyspraxia is not a well-known or understood difficulty. In fact I have been asked before if I have misspelt dyslexia, as the person I had written a note for (who worked with children as a teaching assistant, so should have at least a little bit of knowledge of common difficulties) had never heard of it!

I work closely with one young boy with dyspraxia. I had heard of the condition, but had very little knowledge or experience of it, and so decided to do a Google search for some background information.
For anyone interested, dyspraxia is a complex disorder, affecting many aspects of life. It can have an effect on almost everything, from fine to gross motor skills (fine, such as using a knife and fork, gross such as balancing whilst riding a bike), affected speech, peculiar gait, poor memory, and emotional and behavioural consequences such as impulsivity. Not every dyspraxic person will exhibit difficulties in every area, especially as they near adulthood by which time they have often developed strategies to minimise their difficulties and have had sufficient practice at the day-to-day skills necessary to have pretty much mastered them. Dyspraxia affects around 10% of the population, of which about 2% are severely affected. As with most developmental conditions, males far outnumber females with a ratio of about 4:1 (this is similar to autism, ADHD and dyslexia).

All of this information was interesting, but not very helpful when it comes to supporting a child in school and so I looked on Amazon for a book aimed at teaching assistants. This was the first of the How to series that I bought. It would have been £9.99 new, but I got mine second-hand and only paid £4.99. I've just checked, and Amazon currently have the book for £7.49 new, from £4.17 (plus p&p) used.

The book opens with an introduction, which calls dyspraxia the 'hidden handicap' (slightly confusing if you're at all knowledgeable about autism as it's usually autism which is so called). There's a lovely poem from a 9 year old girl with dyspraxia which explains the affects of the disorder really well.

The book has 5 chapters, plus an appendix:
-Chapter 1 – Common questions about dyspraxia
-Chapter 2 – The development of motor skills and perception
-Chapter 3 – Assessment and identification
-Chapter 4 – Support in the classroom
-Chapter 5 – Final Questions

Chapter 1 obviously kicks off with what dyspraxia is, moving on to other terms (which I found helpful as a couple of the older teachers in my school sometimes use terms I'm not familiar with but seem to be referring to the same condition). This chapter also deals with the prevalence and sex differences of dyspraxia. The most useful aspect of this chapter for me is a bullet-pointed guide of how to recognise a child with dyspraxia, including separate sections for the different key stages.

Chapter 2 looks at the development of motor skills and perception, both areas in which children with dyspraxia typically have difficulties. The logic behind this chapter is that in order to effectively support a child and to address their needs, it's helpful to understand why these difficulties are there. The subject matter is a little on the heavy side, as I suppose is inevitable, but I really like the way that figures and illustrations are included to clarify and support the information (e.g. contrasting drawings from neurotypical children with those of dyspraxic children).

Chapter 3 explains when and why dyspraxia is likely to be recognised (when children first start school). It then goes on to what to look for if you feel a child could be dyspraxic, including a really useful check-list. There is a case study provided as an example of an assessment profile and also to show what sort of targets are useful and achievable in an Individual Education Plan.

Chapter 4 is the chapter I have referenced most, and is also the chapter I personally find most useful. It is primarily aimed at teaching assistants, although the majority of the tips and ideas are also great for teachers (teaching assistants tend to have more time with the children and more time to implement interventions). Ideas are given to help children with all aspects of school life. Differentiation of work is considered, with emphasis on the fact that dyspraxic children are not necessarily less able than others, but they may well take much longer to write simply because holding the pen and getting the letters out is so much more of an effort for them, and so differentiation of work needs to take this into account. There are ideas on how to help children with pen grip, with any speech difficulties, with reading, with sports and so on.

I find that most of the tips and ideas are easy to apply, and there are so many that even if one doesn't work, or isn't practicable in a certain school, it's not a problem as another can be tried. Some of the ideas involve providing the child with adapted facilities or resources, such as a sloped writing surface or a ring pen, and there is information on where to get these, which is very useful.

A bullet-point list of classroom adaptations closes this chapter. Very few of these are as drastic as the title of the list implies. They are, however, very useful and for the most part effective and easy to apply.

Chapter 5 is a short chapter, mainly dealing with where to go for further help and information. In this chapter there is a section on whether or not children with dyspraxia should be statemented, this is really useful as applying for statements is such a time taking and difficult process, and this time may be more usefully spent with the child.

The appendix of this book is a list of contact details for organisations which are set up to support in dyslexia, suppliers of resources for dyspraxia and so on.

This book is very easy to use and is very useful. As anyone who regularly reads my reviews will know, I have since bought several other books from the same series and swear by them. If you have anything to do with a clumsy child, this book is worth a look as the techniques to help dyspraxic children may well help any child with motor or perception difficulties.