I suffer from Dyspraxia

Abigail's Story

Ever since I was young I had difficulty with simple things that other people in my school would find easy. My family always knew there was something "different" about me, they just didn't work out that (for example) the reason I couldn't ride a bike was because I had Dyspraxia.

As well as having difficulty with school subjects such as Maths and English, I couldn't hold a pen properly and I had to ask someone else in my school to tie my shoelaces for me, which was made even more embarrassing by the fact that hardly anyone in the school actually liked me, mainly because I would refuse to play with them. You see, I couldn't skip, catch or run without falling over.

Even when I was a baby I didn't even crawl properly (I would sit on the floor and kind of shuffle to move around until I learned to walk). I always used to fall down the stairs due to my bad balance, which terrified my parents who thought something was seriously wrong with me.

School was tough

When I started school, it became more and more obvious to me and my family that I was not at the same level as the other children in my class.

My teachers would make everyone in the class stand up in front of everyone to practice things like the numbers, the alphabet, spelling and times tables… and I could never remember any of them. The others used to make fun of me for this, telling me how useless and stupid I was.

“They said I was different and lazy”

Abigail

In PE lessons, no one wanted to work in a group with me and would laugh at me when I fell over or couldn't catch a ball, and when I told the teachers about it, they said it was my fault for being "different" and "lazy". They didn't understand that no matter how hard I worked on these things, I just couldn't remember anything.

My parents could tell that there was something wrong with me, but they always thought it was Dyslexia due to my difficulty with reading and writing.

Answers

When I was 11, we finally found the answer: I was diagnosed with Dyspraxia. This is basically a condition that affects some or all areas of development, i.e. emotional, physical, language, social and/or sensory. I know now that Dyspraxia can overlap with other things such as Dyslexia (difficulty with reading and spelling), Dyscalculia (difficulty with mathematics) and Autism, which explains all my other difficulties with things like English and Maths.

We actually found out I had Dyspraxia by pure luck, when a teacher at my school recognised my symptoms because her son also had it. I knew what I had was only mild and my family were even told that with lots of support and dedication on my part, I wouldn't have any signs of a learning difficulty by the time I went to college.

Overcoming Dyspraxia

So I worked very hard to overcome it. I learnt to tie my shoelaces myself, remembered how to hold a pen properly and spent extra time learning things like times tables and doing hand exercises to help me write quicker.

“I worked hard to overcome it”

Abigail

I was made even more determined to do well when a girl in my secondary school who also had Dyspraxia WOULD NOT do anything to try and overcome it. When we started our new school she was ahead of me and I was still struggling with quite a few things, but because she saw it as an excuse for not having to put much effort in at school, she actually got worse while I got better.

I remember her telling everyone that neither of us could do anything and that WE were always at the bottom of the class. I just wanted to prove her wrong. After years of arguing that I wasn't lazy, that I had dyspraxia, she actually was being lazy. I didn't want people to think we were the same.

Moving forward

Now, I am preparing for my GCSE exams and while I won't do brilliantly at them, I'll do better then my family or my school expected. I still have problems with a few things, but I feel a lot more confident with learning new things.

Because of the bullying I went through, I still find it hard talking to new people, but I know that Dyspraxia is not a big problem, really. My little brother was diagnosed with Autism, and my other little brother has recently been diagnosed with the same thing.

It really upsets me seeing my little brothers going through the same things I did; being bullied and not getting any support from the teachers - but at least now we know how to help both of them. I'll be there for both of them.

I guess what I really want is for more people, especially teachers and parents, to know more about different learning difficulties and to realise that just because some people find things hard, it doesn't mean they aren't trying as much as all the straight A students in the school. And that's something I'm going to prove to everyone.