Had one of those conversations with the boy last night that made me again acknowledge his level of dyspraxia. He was lying in bed and I asked if he wanted the door closed to which he replied that he needed some of the light from the landing so that he knew which way round he was lying!
I pointed out to him that he has been lying in the same direction for pretty much a year now, as we changed beds last spring. Surely by now he knew where his head was, this was not the case. We had a little chuckle that he was soooooooooooooo dyspraxic, quite a common phrase in our house and I bade him goodnight.
Isn't it amazing that something so instinctive for me and all of us neurotypical people out there is missing in people with dyspraxia? The boy for years has always required a light at night time so that he knows where he is, something that until recently I could not understand. When he sleeps in other people's houses the difficulties are further increased, he has fallen out of bed a few times because he can not feel where he is in relation to the bed.
The skill that we have in order to know where our body is, is called kinesthetic awareness. This relates to the information from the senses which inform us about our body, where the parts are, the space between our body and objects around . It can also tell us about the direction we are moving in and where our bodies end and the world begins. Whenever the boy had a growth spurt he would become particularly clumsy as he would need to learn that his legs were a bit longer which would then require him to concentrate more on moving them so that he would not fall over.
Before he was diagnosed with Dyspraxia, the boy was seen by an occupational therapist who diagnosed him with Sensory Integrative Processing Disorder. There is a wealth of information about this and I could describe it in more detail but I feel if I describe it as how it affects the boy, it will be clearer.The boys body recieves incorrect information from his muscles, hearing, vestibular and tactile senses which means that his development is skewed because he responds to stimuli differently. The visual sense is another route that can be affected too within this disorder. Children can also be high seeking so they want activities that require lots of stimulation ie rough housing, loud noises, fast swinging so that they can get the appropriate amount of feedback to their bodies. Or, like the boy they can be low seeking which means they avoid most playground apparatus, parties, brightly lit places, any type of physical contact because their senses are overloaded. Because of the misinformation, the boy's body learnt to adapt his responses as he felt would be correct for him. This means that although he responds differently he gets to the same place as everyone else, just in a different way.
So something like holding a pencil for example needs him to ascertain how hard to grip it. He is over sensitive to touch,so he would hold it too lightly but then that would mean it wouldn't be enough pressure to make a mark on the paper, so he would need to reprocess it all again so he could then function to use it. However his motor skills are affected too, so he would need to work harder to manoeuvre the pencil properly to write. Oh hang on, he can't balance either to sit on a chair and write at the same time, so more energy is needed to keep him upright, the pencil and paper still and now he is expected to look up at a board and copy whilst managing everything else. Who would have thought it could take so much work? Add to this a lower sense of self esteem as they observe their peers manage everyday tasks effortlessly and it is clearly obvious why intervention is needed early.
For a while, he had occupational therapy to help stimulate his senses properly. He would sit on a large swing in the middle of the room and be pushed to help him gain more control over his balance or his limbs would be brushed to help him desensitise. When he was in year 6, he decided that he didn't want to be different from his peers so the therapy stopped. I now slip the therapy discretely into his daily activities, such as a weighted blanket on his bed so that he can get the correct feedback from his body when in bed and I also get him to carry heavy shopping bags to stimulate his muscles. We have muddy dog walks where he has to walk on uneven ground, walk along logs to avoid boggy areas the whole time stimulating his balance (vestibular) senses.
The whole time then, these children with Dyspraxia are concentrating harder because of having to filter out incorrect information about their environment and then they need to plan and organise how to respond appropriately. In my boy's case this even needs to happen when he's in bed! No wonder he's tired.
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