Dyspraxia

Question:

What is dyspraxia and what can be done about it?

Answer:

Dyspraxia is sometimes called ‘clumsy child syndrome.’ The child (or adult) with dyspraxia may be chronically clumsy or accident-prone. The dyspraxic individual also has poor motor skills. For example, a child may have great difficulty holding a pencil and struggle tremendously with writing. Because of poor motor co-ordination, the child may also find it virtually impossible to learn to ride a bike, or to catch a ball.

We have found Davis Orientation, as described in The Gift of Dyslexia, to be very helpful with dyspraxia. The ‘koosh ball’ excercise that accompanies Fine Tuning is particularly helpful to the individual with problems with large motor skills, balance, or hand/eye coordination. Orientation resolves the perceptual problems which underly many symptoms of dyspraxia. Many individuals report after doing Orientation that it is the first time in their lives they have felt ‘in balance’ rather than somehow being off-center.

More information about using Davis Orientation for dypraxia is in Chapter 11 (Clumsiness) and Chapter 30 (Coordination) of the revised edition of The Gift of Dyslexia .

(Answer by Abigail Marshall)