Defining Dyspraxia...

Describing Dyspraxia 

Thoughts on my description... 

             

          At present I am brain racing but thankfully at a bearable level whereby, I can use some of the thoughts that are whizzing around in my head and explore the issues surrounding them. My thoughts are on Dyspraxia at present, I think this is because on Wednesday I did a talk on Dyspraxia and how it affects adults. I also used the opportunity to advertise and discuss the book 'Dyspraxic Adults surviving in a none Dyspraxic World'.  The Hub is a group that supports young people and adults with mental health issues, learning disabilities and or physical health problems. And I was happy to be asked to do a talk on Dyspraxia and push myself past my comfort zone with regards speaking in public.  Dyspraxia is a difficult neurological condition to define, however, a few years ago I came up with what I thought was a good way to describe it; so that even neuro-typicals' could grasp what is going on. 

                     I decided that I needed to come up with some sort of interactive way of defining and describing Dyspraxia. I also deliberately picked two eye catching and remember-able characters as my objects.   I brought my grumpy cat teddy and my pug stress ball; I placed grumpy cat on a stool on the right and I placed the pug on a lower stool on the left. After placing some stools in between and moving some furniture around I asked for 3 volunteers. One volunteer had to stand outside whilst I explained to the remaining two that their task was to safely direct the soon to be blindfolded volunteer to pick up the grumpy cat and the stress ball pug; but their was a catch. The two remaining volunteers were not allowed to use the words; left, right, forwards and backwards'. The blindfolded volunteer was then guided into the room whereby I explained to her that its the volunteers' jobs to guide her  safely to the items. The task proved challenging, once or twice the volunteers slipped up using the words ' forwards and right.' The volunteers were able to help the blindfolded member of their team but it was difficult. I am sorry I can not remember how they did it. ( The joys of executive functioning haha). Once the task was accomplished I reminded the audience that with Dyspraxia the 'tunnels' that transports messages from our brain to the spinal cord and then to the rest of our body are mismatched, damaged and are not always connecting properly . This means messages are mixed up, delayed or not even sent in the first place.

            Having 'faulty' tunnels has similarities to the positions the two remaining volunteers were in. They knew they had a task to do but how were they suppose to do it when some of the key words were taken from them? Being Dyspraxic I have an idea of what I am suppose to do but I am often stumped by the how to do it? And of course the order in which to do it! Dyspraxic Adults are far from incapable in fact, I would go as far as to say having Dyspraxia has helped me to develop strategies that have enabled me not only to complete tasks but to complete tasks well.  

The views of Dyspraxic Adults 

          

        I'm a firm believer that in order to learn and consider factors that you may never of thought of it is always good to listen and think about the views of others. I decided to ask my fellow Dyspraxics how they would describe and /or explain Dyspraxia to those who have never heard of it before. Having red through the comments there is a combination of  blunt, funny and sometimes sad descriptions of Dyspraxia. They are all equally important and have aspects for us to consider but due to the fact I have already gone over my typical word format; I have chosen a few for you to consider, in the hope that if my description did not make any sense, maybe the descriptions offered by my fellow Dyspraxics will help you to better understand. 

Points to ponder... 

Well....in terms of processing information, my brain just takes the scenic route  

I tell folk that my brains wired slightly differently So it takes me longer to do some kind of things than an ordinarily wired up person dose ...but that this kind of wiring is sometimes beneficial as it gives me a certain perspective on things that they wouldn't think of.

Dyspraxia is like everybody got the memo except you.

Dyspraxia is the Mind of a Hare trapped in the body of a Tortoise

I have to catch a bus to travel outside the box to catch up with my thinking. Only trouble it is hard to show others this! 

Often use the old mobile phone metaphor. With the early text message versions, if you wanted to send a long message it would be divided into lets say three messages which would all be sent at the same time, but not always arrive in the right order, and some parts would never arrive. That's how I see our brains, messages always being sent and not always getting where they need to or in in the way they should

Dyslexia is Paper to Brain
Dyspraxia is Brain to Paper.

In this I mean Dyslexics find it difficult to digest information but Dyspraxics find it hard to get it out.

Pissed toddler trying to walk on stilts

Ask them to spend a day with a full carrier bag tied to each wrist to see how annoyed I makes them feel when the bags get tangled together and after a while feel really heavy.