What Is Dyspraxia? How Is Dyspraxia Treated?

I was thinking about dyspraxia today. Mostly because I was watching my 2 year old imitate nearly everything his older (6 yrs) sister did. This morning, he didn't want to eat his apple until he saw her eat an apple. He didn't want to brush his teeth until he saw her do it. Then, as they played upstairs it seemed like he had no problem joining her play and doing what she did. As they were stacking blocks, she decided to get creative and build a "telephone" out of the blocks. Once finished, she "talked" on the phone. I expected him to build a car or house as he usually does, or even attempt to imitate her telephone structure...but he didn't. He built a camera. That's right, a camera! It caught me off guard when he came up to me with his connected blocks, put them to his eye, and said "cheese". I laughed of course, and told him I liked his camera; he then repeatedly said "camera'.

This whole scenario would be too difficult for some of the young kids I work with, for various reasons but mostly due to poor motor planning (aka dyspraxia). Good motor planning includes the ability to imitate another person's actions as well as sequencing out the steps to a new task and making coordinated movements with the body. All too often young kids with developmental disabilities have to be taught how to play, so the above scenario would be hard. It took visual memory, expressive language, motor planning/sequencing, imitation, sensory processing, fine-motor, cognition, and social-emotional skills. For a checklist of detailed signs and symptoms of dyspraxia for various age groups go to:


What Is Dyspraxia? How Is Dyspraxia Treated?

I've seen many kids with dyspraxia make huge gains, especially when their family and school understood what it was. Often, extra repetitions of teaching a task, patience, and lots of sensory input help the child learn. Occupational therapy is usually beneficial, and since some of the children have language delays also, they can benefit from speech therapy. It is important to find something the child is good at to boost their self-esteem. This doesn't typically include a sport such as soccer that requires the person to motor plan their actions against a moving ball and other moving people. Sometimes non-competitive activities such as karate, piano playing, and art classes are beneficial.

Imaginative Play

It is so cute to watch kids, especially toddlers and preschoolers use their imagination during play. As a therapist, I can often get little kids to do some amazing things with imaginative play, and the little ones don't even realize they are improving with their body strength, communication, sensory processing, or other areas of development. They just think they are playing. With imagination: ankle weights become "space boots", arms out to the side become "butterfly wings", and slithering on the belly turns one into a "sneaky snake". Even though as an occupational therapist, my main training is not in speech and language skills, I can really work on expressive and receptive language skills during imaginative play.



I have to hand it to my husband, he is actually better at imaginative play than I am. And that is saying something, because I love to play and act silly. Last year my daughter was really into the Peter Pan Disney movie. So, my husband went to a local party supply store and bought her a Peter Pan costume and some pirate accessories. My husband and then 4-year old daughter would play for up to 30 minutes as she acted out scenes from the movie. He even "threw her" onto the bed as if she was being shot out of the canon. She also jumped from the bed to his arms as she was "walking the plank". It was so cute. Now, I am sad that she isn't as into acting out stories. She is in kindergarten and is much more into playing with games, dolls, tea party, and her friends.



So, today I was watching my 15 month old son play with an unactivated cell phone as he said "hi". I was thinking, "yeah", I get to watch his imagination develop. He is at the age where it is just emerging. Let the fun begin!



At work, so often the toddlers I work with can't yet participate in imaginative play until we work on some underlying skills: joint attention, memory, following simple instructions, sensory processing, & imitating other peoples actions, sounds, or words. So often the attention and imitation are the two biggies we work on. I get so excited when I get to work on the high level skill of imagination! All of the sudden we can be clowns in the circus, cowboys on a horse, and any zoo animal we so desire to be! Sometimes it is even fun to make up an animal or thing that doesn't yet exist!

Well, I am off to go watch the ultimate imagination movie with my daughter and husband on the couch...Toy Story. From the opening scene of the boy playing with his toys to the way the creators of the movie have the toys come to life, this movie is full of imagination! It's been around for awhile, but we love it. We are ready for Toy Story 3 that is due out in 2010!