Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Can a social child have Dyspraxia?

I was reading through some threads and saw a discussion about dyspraxia. In so many ways this seems to define my dd. The Dyspraxia Foundation has a list of symptoms for a 7 year old:

******************

By 7 years old
Problems may include:

Difficulties in adapting to a structured school routine
Difficulties in Physical Education lessons
Slow at dressing. Unable to tie shoe laces
Barely legible handwriting
Immature drawing and copying skills
Limited concentration and poor listening skills
Literal use of language
Inability to remember more than two or three instructions at once
Slow completion of class work
Continued high levels of motor activity
Hand flapping or clapping when excited
Tendency to become easily distressed and emotional
Problems with co-ordinating a knife and fork
Inability to form relationships with other children
Sleeping difficulties, including wakefulness at night and nightmares
Reporting of physical symptoms, such as migraine, headaches, feeling sick

********************


My DD7 is VERY, VERY social. She has great relationships with other kids and is also very verbal. She likes the routine at school but can be upset by it if a particular teacher is too rigid. I also think she has good concentration and listening skills. Otherwise this list desribes her very well. (The description of younger children was also very close other than the fact that she LOVED creative and imaginative play, was always very social and had no problems with verbal instructions.) She has always been very comfortable with adults but has always eagerly sought out kids as playmates.

No one has mentioned Dypaxia as a possibility yet but I am wondering if it is worth considering. Are the social and verbal aspects an intregral part? I don't really understand the connection to a movement/coordination disorder.

We will have to have her neuropsych eval redone in a few month since the first one was considered invalid. Is this where I would raise the question or should I ask about it at my next meeting at school? She is already in take out for reading, OT, speech and anxiety. We are trying to get the migraines under control and have no answer yet on the possible seizure disrder. We are also seeing an orthodontist this afternoon because her dentist thinks a dental issue may be at the root of the headaches.

I HATE the idea of adding yet another thing to the list of issues but if it is a real possibility it needs to be explored - right?

Please wise members of the forum please tell me if what I have described to you over the past few months looks like it could be dyspraxia. Or can I rule it out as a possibility because of the social, verbal or other aspects. Would an OT have picked up on this or is it a "specialty" diagnosis?

Thanks in advance for all input.

I have to say, those are all kind of nonspecific symptoms in that list of dyspraxia. My son has some of those yet he doesn't have dyspraxia! Alot of boys (or even girls, frankly) have "slow completion of class work"- that is half of my son's third grade class!
I would say if you have a child with some of these issues, consider trying to get them into a sport, karate, etc.

Hi Pemberley,
I'm exactly where you are with my DD8 and I think these kids can be very social. Mine is very gregarious, though she does better with kids who are 2-3 years older but that might just be the intellectual/verbal skills are a better match. Also the issues she has with sequencing seem to hurt her in social situations.

It's really hard when your child is very bright and has LD issues, it can be so murky. The latest SENG webinar is going to be about working out the details of gifted and LD.

These LDs are so specialized and some of the indicators overlap. I know that to diagnose dyslexia for example the testing has to be very thorough and careful. If an OT didn't pick up on dypraxia I wouldn't think that would be reason to doubt. The training and experience of each one is so different. Feedback for my DD has been so incredibly "all over the place" over the years, it's so confusing.

My DD's current teacher does not accept any LD ideas (mainly the point being DD stays on target with her grade level), but she'll say things about how literal DD is (to the extend that it hurts her socially and with scoring on word problems and comprehension tests) and that she doesn't seem to "get" metaphors. Also when you see DD's work hanging in the hallway next to her classmate's it is plain as day that she doesn't have average "output".

I am pretty secure via reputation about the person who is going to be doing DD's new testing but I'm still reading alot and noting any feedback from school or things I see to offer, for him to gain as clear as a picture as he can. And for me too, since the better I can understand DD the more caring and appropriate parenting I can give her.

I don't find this list particularly useful, as some of these symptoms can also be signs of being gifted, some others are signs of being 7, and the remainder can be signs of something completely unrelated to dyspraxia.

I dont' know too much about Dyspraxia, except that my son was treated for it by an OT. I always thought it was a sort of OT thing.
'Problems with planning motor skills' and
'it's natural for most kids to learn to move their bodies by watching others without any thought - just the opposite for your kid' and
'once the behavior becomes automatic, it's just as good as for any other kid, but the process of getting the behavior to become automatic - well, that's very unusually difficult for your child.'
are how I think of it.

My guess is that being a social kid has (at least) two components -
1) The motivation to be social with other children
2) Being good at learning, and then doing, what works well when trying to be social with other kids.

I can see that poor motor planning would get in the way of #2 in all sorts of ways. Like adults, kids probably unconsiously mirror the body language of others as a way to fit in. Kids complained in 2nd grade that my son didn't smile, and his face wasn't expressive. Some kids 'know' how hard to push and when to back down. In elementary school, my son appeared not to be recieving those social signal, and also not particularly motivated to head them. Tone of voice requires muscles to be controled, and if one hasn't internalized what it takes to add color to speech, then it's going to be more difficult to interpret that color in other peoples speech. Sarcasm came before he caught on to other people's sarcasm.

My son was a social kid in the sense of the first component, and sort of average in the second component. Was he using his great motivation and his PG intelligence to compensate for his difficulties in the second area? I'll bet. Since we had no idea about how unusual his strengths were back then we had no way to know.

Here's our list -

Yes - on a behavior plan in 1st grade - Difficulties in adapting to a structured school routine

Yes -Difficulties in Physical Education lessons

Very Very Yes -Slow at dressing. Unable to tie shoe laces

Yes - Barely legible handwriting

Yes - except he was so perfectionistic that he outright refused to do these - Immature drawing and copying skills

Some said yes, some said no, he did eventually get a diagnosis of ADHD-I - Limited concentration and poor listening skills

No - Literal use of language

Huh? You can give 7 year olds 3 instructions at once? I'd be happy to have 1 instruction obeyed. In fact, if I am in a hurry, I must fein relaxation to get DS to do anything. So that means 1 instruction plus a feeling is too overwhelming! - Inability to remember more than two or three instructions at once

No -Slow completion of class work

School thought he ways hyperactive, no doubt about it. - Continued high levels of motor activity

No - Hand flapping or clapping when excited

Compared to what, any of my family members? No. Oh, compared to agemates. Ok - Yes! -Tendency to become easily distressed and emotional

LOL yes! - Problems with co-ordinating a knife and fork

Strong No -Inability to form relationships with other children

LOL again. Strong yes! -Sleeping difficulties, including wakefulness at night and nightmares

Not at home, but at school, Yes! The school nurse was one of his best friends. Ug! Reporting of physical symptoms, such as migraine, headaches, feeling sick.

The OT helps with a lot of this. The book, Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook, helps with a lot of this also. Medication for ADHD-I has been a big help. Time was a great help. 2nd grade was the worst year, and having a teacher who got how smart he was, but didn't know that gifted kids could be behind in other ways sure didn't help.

She slipped in one of our many many meetings and said,with passion "If only he tried, this is baby stuff" and then choked off the words 'baby' stuff. So there is was, an admission that the work was way below what he needed intellectually and an admission that she saw his lack of output as a character flaw issue rather than a disability.

Did he internalize the idea that he was lazy and didn't try hard enough? You bet. Did he internalize that he was 'broken' - you bet. Did we overcome all of it eventually? Absolutely. But it wasn't something I'd want to do again. Being informed and surrounded by support is much better.

Well, that's my story, that's what keeps me hanging around and trying my best to make it easier for other families.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

If you suspect something, get her professionally evaluated. The sooner you catch a disability, the better the treatment works. Dyspraxia looks different with every child, especially with a gifted child.

Both my son and husband have mild dyspraxia.
My husband was an athlete and popular throughout school (ASB President of his High School). My son also has a lot of friends and is well-liked. They are both highly verbal and not literal. So no problems in those areas. They struggle with handwriting and other things though.

So, dyspraxia looks different in each person, you know?
Like many conditions, the symptoms vary, but the underlying neurology is the same.

That's what we are dealing with right now. ~~sigh~~

Our list:

Slow at dressing. Unable to tie shoe laces -- yep
Barely legible handwriting -- yep
Immature drawing and copying skills -- they are age level, but it's difficult for him
Limited concentration and poor listening skills -- sometimes
Slow completion of class work -- if writing is involved, yes
Continued high levels of motor activity -- yes
Problems with co-ordinating a knife and fork -- yes!!

My son is 3.5yo, so some of this stuff is age-appropriate, but the difference is...he needs therapy to keep up with his peers because it is more difficult for him. Luckily, we caught it early and it shouldn't be a problem in the future.

The way his OT explained it....
His brain is going so fast, his body has trouble keeping up

also

It's like watching TV with the sound 30 seconds behind

Because of his highly asynchronous development, his brain is not developing in sync with his body, so some of the messages get lost. He is compensating with high intelligence and natural athletic ability, so it's not as noticeable as it could be.

Every time he has a growth spurt, we hope that his brain will stop developing and give his body time to catch up!

The OT did say that socially, DS isn't able to pick up as many social cues as other children his age. A lot of sensory information gets lost--that is part of dyspraxia.

From what I can tell, DS does have difficulties being aware of all the body language (like Grinity mentioned), but he compensates with a lot of empathy, an overall happy personality, amazing verbal skills, and a well-developed sense of humor. He likes to make others laugh and smile (including his parents) so that is offsetting the dyspraxia enough to keep him well-liked. It's funny to see because he does make social mistakes, but then he recovers them with a funny joke or a big smile. Kids are pretty forgiving at this age. That may change though.

My husband doesn't have any problems socially, and is well-liked...so YMMV.

Ditto! FWIW, my ds has dyspraxia, but is also a very people-oriented and extroverted person. He has some struggles in social situations but not enough for anyone to really notice.

Our neuropsych has a diagram that was helpful to me as we went went through the process of understanding our ds' diagnosis - I think there's a copy of it somewhere online. It has three intersecting circles - basically a Venn diagram showing the overlap and division of symptoms of disorders in the autism spectrum vs disorders similar to dyspraxia vs (I think) psychiatric disorders. There are many shared symptoms! That's why it's so important to have a thorough eval by a competent professional that you trust is seeing your whole child.

I've gotta run drop my kids off at school but will come back later and fill in where my ds fits under the list of symptoms above. To be honest, it seems like a broader list than I usually see for dyspraxia, so I'm curious where you found it?

Best wishes,

polarbear

Hi,

My DS7 has dyspraxia. His OT considers it "pure" dyspraxia (not associated with other LDs or issues). As others have said, the list you posted sounds too general for simple dyspraxia. Other diagnoses (AS, ADHD for example) can have dyspraxia as one symptom. But dyspraxia can exist by itself too.

My son's problems are primarily with physical coordination (both gross and fine motor skills and muscle tone, so sports, handwriting, dressing, eating, drawing, and speech are affected). He is very social and not a literal thinker. He doesn't have problems with concentration, arousal state or focus (as compared to his ADHD brother).


From what I understand, dyspraxia is just another way of saying "un-coordinated". The more modern name for it here in Canada is "developmental coordination disorder".

http://dcd.canchild.ca/en/AboutDCD/earlyindicators.asp