Dyspraxia in children

Dyspraxia is a disorder in the organization of gestures. It mainly affects the following movements: writing, cutting, pasting, dressing, etc. The child knows what to do, but he cannot do the right things in a harmonious and efficient manner. It is estimated that this disorder affects between 3 and 6% of children. A large number of them are neither diagnosed nor taken care of.

Words that echo the law adopted on February 11, 2005 (>>> see the official text) and interpreted as a first step towards recognition of disability for the 6% of French people concerned.

Dyspraxia, a learning disability

“The dyspraxic child is unusually awkward. He cannot organize the gestures which he nevertheless conceives well. As a result, motor or graphic achievements are poor, shapeless, or muddled. This is a psychomotor disorder, also called coordination acquisition disorder, but not linked to cerebral palsy ”, explains Michèle Mazeau, rehabilitation doctor, specializing in infantile neuropsychology.

Concretely, this handicap has repercussions in daily life. The child cannot automate the learned actions, such as dressing, cutting meat on their own or playing a construction game.

He performs them very slowly and must provide significant attentional control generating great fatigue “We understand the gestures verbally but we have trouble making them happen”, underlines Rémi, 22, canteen supervisor.

This developmental atypia is all the more difficult to pinpoint and understand as its forms are diverse (dyslexia, dysgraphia, etc.). Most dyspraxias are also accompanied by disturbances in the structuring of certain spatial notions: the child has difficulty in orienting himself and finding his bearings on plans or in space.

 “The school and social repercussions are inevitable and require long-term multidisciplinary care », Warns Michèle Mazeau.

What are the causes of dyspraxia?

What symptoms does a dyspraxic child have?

The observations can be confirmed by complaints in the school environment. “Spotting is often done in kindergarten when imposed activities are very difficult or even impossible for the schoolchild to carry out, such as puzzles, modeling, coloring. He is slow, gets tired, his gaze is lost, his notebooks poorly kept ”, relates Françoise Guilloux, president of DMF, before adding ” this leads the child to isolate himself, or even generates behavioral disorders such as opposition  ».

Take the example of a dyspraxic child with a dressing disorder. Each time he tries to dress, he will be confronted with the same difficulties: how to put his head in the sweater? Where should you put your arms? Every morning, it is as if he has to perform these gestures for the first time. He does not progress and does not acquire automatisms. So it requires a lot of attention and concentration. In the vast majority of cases, a child with dyspraxia presents with writing disorders, which is a very complex gesture. When he tries to write he cannot listen or concentrate on anything else. He therefore quickly falls behind in school if his problem is not spotted. Naturally, a dyspraxic child will seek to get around his difficulties and to express himself more through oral language than through writing or academic work. Hence the frequent observation of a “soft talker” side in dyspraxic children.

How to diagnose dyspraxia?

Dyspraxias can be spotted from 3-4 years old: we begin to perceive the child’s clumsiness, we realize that he cannot perform certain specific manipulations that are asked of him at school. But the child being otherwise quite balanced, parents may wonder if he is not just clumsy and a little lazy. Then the difficulties can be confirmed with the learning of writing and school activities from the first grade. Once dyspraxia is suspected, it is necessary to contact a referent center for language and learning disorders in order to obtain a diagnosis. The waiting time before a first appointment can be several months and you have to be patient. A psychometric test comparing the child’s abilities in handling or writing situations and in oral dialogue situations reveals his dyspraxic disorders.

What is the management of dyspraxia?

There is no cure for dyspraxia, but we can make it easier to live with it. Once the dyspraxia has been identified, the child follows an adapted functional rehabilitation. The use of language with which the dyspraxic child is comfortable will be privileged by the medical team. And rather than tackling the problems head-on, it will develop compensation strategies and educational adjustments. Keyboard writing is therefore very often favored: it is easier to learn, the child can write faster, he gets less tired and remains attentive to his environment while he is writing. It is important to take care of the child as soon as possible as long as the plasticity of his brain allows him to be more adaptable. However, regardless of the age at which the diagnosis is made, identifying the disorder and putting in place coping strategies is very important.

How to react to the difficulties of your dyspraxic child?

It must be valued in all possible ways and made sure not to confront it systematically with failure. It is impossible for him to acquire an automatism by training, so it is useless for example to make him write for hours: he will not progress and will suffer from it. On the other hand, we can help him get around the difficulties. If he has a dyspraxia of the dressing, we will proscribe the clothes with buttons and the laces, we will opt for the hook-and-loop fasteners and we will help him by arranging the clothes in the correct order.

Do you want to talk about it between parents? To give your opinion, to bring your testimony? We meet on https://forum.parents.fr.