The Difference Between Dyslexia and Dyspraxia
The difference between dyslexia and dyspraxia is a commonly asked question as dyslexia and dyspraxia are both learning difficulties.
Dyslexia mainly affects reading whereas Dysgraphia primarily affects movement and planning. Though they are both learning disorders they have a set of distinct characteristics.
What is dyslexia?
It’s a learning disorder that affects the ability to read, spell, write and speak. Children who have it are often smart and hardworking but have trouble connecting letters they see to the sounds those letters make.
Adults can have this learning disorder as well. Some people are diagnosed early in life whereas others don’t realize they have an issue until much later.
Children with this disorder often have normal vision and are just as smart as their peers. But they struggle more in school because it takes them longer to read. Trouble with processing words makes it harder to write, spell and speak clearly. However, this is a disability that can be spotted early through a FREE screening and precise remedial actions can then be taken based on a detailed assessment of the problem.
What is dyspraxia?
Previously called “clumsy child syndrome”, the contemporary term for this disorder is Developmental Coordination Disorder(DCD) or Dyspraxia.
Dyspraxia is defined as “a form of developmental coordination disorder (DCD)”. – The Dyspraxia Foundation
Dyspraxia has an impact on motor coordination skills. It can cause children and adults to perform movements poorly and out of order.
It is a neurological condition and affects everything from preparing to organizing and performing movements, sometimes extending into speech and memory ability.
It can also upset the articulation of spoken language as well as thought process and perception.
Compromised coordination greatly affects everyday activities for individuals with dyspraxia, causing difficulties in school activities like reading and writing, as well as recreational activities like riding a bike and driving a car.
What are the symptoms?
Both dyslexia and dyspraxia the learning disorders mentioned above have tell tale signs and symptoms that manifest, which makes it possible, if not easy to identify the respective disorders.
Symptoms of dyslexia
Symptoms occurring before school may include:
- Talking late
- Learning new words slowly
- Problems forming words correctly
- Confusing what words sound like
- Problems remembering or naming letters, numbers or colours
- Difficulty playing games or learning nursery rhymes
At school, the symptoms may be:
- Reading well below the expected level for their age
- Having problems processing and understanding what he or she hears
- Difficulty forming the right questions or forming the right word
- Problems in remembering the sequence of things
- Difficulty spelling
- Avoiding activities that involve reading
- Spending an unusually long time completing tasks that involve writing or reading
- Inability to pronounce an unfamiliar word
In teens and adults, the symptoms that manifest may be:
- Difficulty reading
- Difficulty reading aloud
- Problem spelling
- Avoiding activities that involve reading
- Mis-pronouncing names or words, or problems retrieving words
- Trouble understanding jokes or expressions that have meaning
- Spending an unusually long time completing tasks that involve writing or reading
- Difficulty summarizing a story
- Trouble learning a foreign language
- Difficulty memorizing
- Difficulty solving math problems
Symptoms of dyspraxia fall under categories such as
- Gross motor coordination skills (large movements)
- Fine motor coordination skills (small movements)
- Poorly established hand dominance
- Speech and language
- Eye movements
- Perception
Gross motor coordination skills
- Poor balance (difficulty riding a bicycle, going up and down hills)
- Poor posture and fatigue. Difficulty standing for a long time as a result of weak muscle tone (floppy unstable round joints)
- Poor integration of both sides of the body
- Poor hand-eye coordination (difficulties with driving cars)
- Lack of rhythm when dancing, doing aerobic
- Clumsy gait movement.
- Difficulty changing direction, stopping and starting actions
- Exaggerated ‘accessory movements’ such as flapping arms while running
- The tendency to fall, trip or bump into things
Fine motor coordination skills (small movements)
- Lack of manual dexterity. Poor at two-handed tasks.
- Poor manipulative skills such as difficulty with typing, handwriting and drawing
- Inadequate grasp (difficulty using domestic implements, locks and keys)
- Difficulty with dressing and grooming activities
Poorly established hand dominance
- May use an alternate hand for different tasks at different times
Speech and language issues
- They may talk continuously and repeat themselves or have difficulty organizing the content and sequence of their language
- May have unclear speech and may be unable to pronounce some words
- Speech may have an uncontrolled pitch, rate or volume
Eye movements
- Difficulty in following a moving object smoothly with eyes without moving head excessively or have a tendency to lose place while reading.
- Cannot look quickly and effectively from one object to another (poor relocating)
Perception
- Poor visual perception
- Oversensitive to light
- Difficulty in distinguishing sounds from background noise
- Oversensitive to noise
- Over sensitive or under sensitive to touch
- Over sensitive or under sensitive to smell, taste, temperature or pain
- Lack of awareness of body positions in space and spatial relationships
- Little sense of time, speed, distance or weight
- Inadequate sense of direction (poor map reading skills)
In Conclusion: The Difference Between Dyslexia and Dyspraxia
Although you might now understand the difference between dyslexia and dsypraxia, both dyspraxia and dyslexia are learning difficulties that can cause children to struggle at school.
Although there seems to be a lot of overlap between the symptoms, dyslexia is used to describe a learning difficulty to read write and spell whereas dyspraxia is the term used to describe a difficulty in motor coordination skills.
About Lexicon Reading Center
Lexicon Reading Center opened its doors in 2009 to assist children who learn differently.
The goal was to bridge the gap between traditional teaching methods and children with learning styles that don’t fall within the parameters of these methods.
We have programs for assessment and remedial action for Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, and Dyscalculia, and Autism. We employ the Multi-Sensory Teaching Method for children with different learning styles and Applied Behavior Analysis for children with challenging behaviors. To receive our detailed advice based on your self-assessment of your child, please download our free checklist below:
