A specific learning disorder affecting motor skills, dyspraxia affects 5 to 7% of children in any given class. Often slow, clumsy, and criticised, they lose self-confidence, drawing them into a spiral of poor results, failure, and discouragement. Yet with appropriate school support, like that provided by the professionals on the Ora Visio platform, nothing stops them from thriving at school and succeeding!
The many difficulties faced by children with dyspraxia
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), dyspraxia shows up in everyday activities, at home, at school, and in social or sporting life. Appearing during the child’s development for no known reason, it results in difficulties eating, getting dressed, and washing, well beyond the usual age for these skills.
At school, the child struggles to organise their work and use equipment (scissors, ruler, eraser…). Usually also dysgraphic, they show a significant and lasting delay in handwriting, producing poor drawings and struggling with cursive writing.
Generally clumsy and slow, their work tends to be mediocre, messy, or even shapeless. Traditionally, children with dyspraxia get poor results in maths, preferring French (except for activities involving handwriting).
The impact of school support for children with dyspraxia
Often discouraged by efforts that go unrewarded, the child with dyspraxia falls into a spiral of negative emotions, far from reflecting their real abilities. Indeed, these children often have broad knowledge and a very good memory, masked by poor results, mainly caused by their slowness and lack of neatness and organisation.
Most children with dyspraxia can’t automate handwriting: controlling the shape of each letter takes up nearly all their attention, preventing them from focusing on spelling or the meaning of the text.
With adapted school support that minimises handwriting, a source of fatigue, they can develop a taste for learning and working, gradually overcoming their difficulties, building the confidence they need to thrive further and succeed at school.
Dyspraxia and school support
Beyond the accommodations available at school (Personalised Educational Success Project – PPRE, Personalised Support Plan – PAP, Personalised Schooling Project – PPS), school support with teaching adapted to children with dyspraxia can strengthen this framework at home.
Necessarily personalised, school support can already adopt a few tips and habits: favouring oral learning, providing worksheets with uncluttered layouts, bold text and strong contrasts, using colour to improve navigation in a double-entry table, for example, valuing the child’s knowledge (reasoning, logic, language), and limiting handwriting, which is particularly tiring for a child with dyspraxia, and so on.
On the Ora Visio platform, all school support professionals are trained in DYS disorders, including dyspraxia: delivered remotely, their lessons adapt to each child’s needs, gradually guiding them along the path to school success and personal fulfilment.
