Dyspraxia. While roughly 6-10 percent of children in the United States have the neurological disorder, very few people actually know what it is. Coming from the Greek word for "ill success" the word literally translates to "bad action." Today, it is defined as "an inability to perform coordinated movements." The word itself brings up many questions such as "What is Dyspraxia?" "Where is it commonly found?" For more, let us take a closer look.
Developmental Coordination Disorder, also called DCD or Dyspraxia, is a life long neurological disorder that affects the fine and gross motor skills. It is defined by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke as: "a disorder characterized by an impairment in the ability to plan and carry out sensory and motor tasks." From this definition there are four types of DCD that branch of from it:
1. Constructional Dyspraxia: the difficulty to understand spacial relationships
2. Ideational Dyspraxia: the difficulty to do a sequence of movements
3. Ideomotor Dyspraxia: the difficulty to do single-step motor tasks
4. Oromotor Dyspraxia: the difficulty to speak
In addition to the four types of DCD, there are different disorders that are often linked with it. Children with DCD often have weak or low muscle tone, joint hyper mobility, memory problems, difficulty with social interactions, emotional and or behavior issues, lack of awareness, an over or under sensitivity to light touch smell taste heat and pain, concentration issues, difficulty sleeping, difficulty telling apart sounds from background noise, and impulsivity. That being said, DCD affects everyone differently and people with it may have all or very few of these symptoms.
Researchers are unsure about what causes DCD. There are multiple theories about where it comes from but no one answer. The most common theory is that it is caused by the nerve cells in the brain not developing correctly which would lead to the brain taking longer to process whats happening. A new study is being done by the University of Nottingham where they are using MRI scans to better understand the cerebellum (where the half of the brain's nerve cells are located) and it's possible role in DCD.
While as many as 6-10% of children may have the disorder it is often undiagnosed and while children do not out grow their DCD, with proper physical therapy they are able to work with it. The Dyspraxia Foundation runs strictly off of donations and memberships. They are also looking for volunteers to help with fundraising and the development of support groups.
