In The News
Did You Say Dyslexia? No, I Said Dyspraxia: The Challenges of Having a Condition No One Has Heard Of….
From the day our son was born, my husband and I knew that our son Travis was a challenging child. The first night of his life, all he did was scream. He could never get a good latch and nursing turned into a disaster. At six-months old, then a year, then three-years he still wasn’t sleeping through the night, despite our best efforts with every sleep training method known to Man. With the exception of talking, he hit every milestone on the late side of normal. Even talking brought its own set of challenges to our son. More often than not, I had to serve as interpreter for him when he was speaking to other adults until he was four years old and even then he still could not speak clearly.
We “wrote off” many of the challenges to a combination of his strong-willed personality and our being first-time parents. Eventually, though, it became obvious that something wasn’t quite right.
Robotic arm reaches out to kids with motor deficit
A robotic arm is lending a hand to children with dyspraxia, a motor-skills deficit also known as Developmental Coordination Disorder or Clumsy Child Syndrome.
The system, under development at the U.K.’s University of Leeds, combines a commercially available Phantom Omni haptic device with software that lets children with coordination problems practice therapist-prescribed exercises at home using an interactive desktop setup. It can also monitor how the kids move, measuring factors like smoothness, speed of movement, and joint configurations.
“Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe has revealed he suffers from dyspraxia.
‘The only child of parents involved in the arts, Radcliffe announced at age five that he might want to be an actor. “My mother said, ‘No you don’t,’” he recalls. She finally relented and allowed him to audition for a television movie of David Copperfield when he was nine, largely because, he says, “I was having a hard time at school, in terms of being crap at everything, with no discernible talent.” Radcliffe also suffers from dyspraxia, a developmental disorder affecting motor skills, and he still has trouble tying his shoes. “I sometimes think, why, oh why, has Velcro not taken off? He says’.
What I should like you to stress that Dan’s dyspraxia is very mild and in fact he only really notices when he tries to tie his shoelaces or with his handwriting. So, I don’t want others to get the wrong impression as it wouldn’t be fair to those who suffer more severely.
Dyspraxia Explains Harry Potter’s Klutziness
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5605093&page=1
Head of dyspraxia group says it helps that Radcliffe has spoken of condition
TORONTO – When “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe spoke publicly about having dyspraxia recently, it was the first time many people had ever heard of the condition.
The diagnostic term used by the medical community is Developmental Co-ordination Disorder, and it encompasses a range of motor difficulties that can interfere with the activities of daily life.
Radcliffe’s spokesman has been quoted saying the star of the phenomenally successful Potter films has a very mild condition that, at its worst, means he has bad handwriting and trouble with tying shoelaces.
Warren Fried, executive director of Dyspraxia USA, is grateful that Radcliffe has talked openly about it.
“Finally, people are interested in what I’ve been trying to explain to them for the past 27 years,” he said from Chicago.
