Dyspraxia (developmental coordination disorder)

Common signs

• Late or awkward with running, hopping, catching or riding a bike.
• Messy, slow and painful handwriting; difficulty with scissors and cutlery.
• Trouble with buttons, laces and getting changed for PE.
• Bumping into things, dropping things and appearing generally disorganised.
• Avoiding sport and physical play, sometimes with complaints of tiredness.

Why it matters

Children with coordination difficulties expend enormous energy on tasks their classmates do automatically. That fatigue shows up as inattention, frustration or avoidance, and it often dents confidence long before anyone names the underlying difficulty.

What helps

Occupational therapy and task-specific practice are the mainstay: breaking a skill into steps and rehearsing it, rather than general exercise. Practical accommodations - a laptop for longer written work, extra time, elasticated uniform, a sloped writing board - remove the barrier while skills develop. Dyspraxia commonly sits alongside ADHD, and assessment should consider both.