Dyspraxia
in Baton Rouge, LA
Does your child seem to struggle with movement? Do they often bump into furniture, appear clumsy, or fall down? These might be signs of dyspraxia, a condition that can be addressed with pediatric occupational therapy. Keep reading to learn more about dyspraxia, what causes it, and how our expert team at Dynamic Therapy Specialists can help your child overcome their movement challenges to achieve their fullest potential.
What Is Dyspraxia?
Dyspraxia, or developmental coordination disorder (DCD), is a neurological condition that affects a child’s ability to plan and perform their body’s movements in a coordinated way. It involves challenges with how the brain tells the body to move. For example, most people know how to drive an automatic car without much thought; but if they had to drive a manual car, they’d likely struggle to coordinate their movements even though they know what they want the car to do.
Signs of Dyspraxia
Common signs and symptoms of dyspraxia in children may include:
- Poor balance and coordination
- Difficulty with fine motor skills (such as handwriting)
- Awkward or clumsy movements
- Trouble with activities requiring sequential steps, like tying shoes or brushing teeth
- Sensitivity to sensory input, such as textures or sounds
- Developmental delays
- Difficulty learning to use utensils to eat
- Challenges with walking up and down stairs
- Frequent accidents or falls
What Can Cause Dyspraxia?
Dyspraxia can sometimes be a symptom of underlying developmental challenges like retained primitive reflexes, the automatic movements that help babies grow and survive. These reflexes are meant to integrate as a child matures, but in some cases, these reflexes may persist beyond their expected timeframe. This can affect a child’s motor development and look like dyspraxia, when in reality the child is having to work twice as hard as their peers to focus on simple actions.
For example, actions like walking should require very little conscious thought; but children with unintegrated reflexes will have to think hard and focus on the steps of walking. This means they may not focus on their environment, which can lead to the clumsiness and poor balance associated with dyspraxia. When the reflexes are properly integrated, these symptoms stop because the child can then properly focus on what they are doing.
How We Address Dyspraxia
At Dynamic Therapy Specialists, we take a holistic approach to pediatric therapy. Rather than simply teaching children how to compensate for the skills they struggle with, we take a bottom-up approach by focusing on remediation first. By evaluating the foundational areas of your child’s development, we can identify and address any underlying causes of their dyspraxia symptoms such as retained primitive reflexes.
Think of it this way: you have to learn to walk before you can learn to run. It’s not that you can’t learn how to run, but if you never learned how to walk first, you’ll be missing the basics that you need to support learning how to run. By prioritizing skill remediation over compensation, we empower children to build a strong foundation for future growth and development.
Schedule an Evaluation Today
If you’re worried that your child has dyspraxia, our team at Dynamic Therapy Specialists will go above and beyond to help. Call us at (225) 767-5032 to schedule an evaluation, and let’s work together to improve your child’s quality of life.