My dyspraxia diagnosis at 21 changed my life but I have always wondered if my school years would have been easier if the additional support need (ASN) was discovered earlier.
Writing about additional support needs has been eye-opening, particularly as I come to terms with my own neurodiversity.
Accepting the condition, and how it fits into my life, has been difficult. I’m not proud to admit that I have kept the diagnosis hidden professionally until recently.
I learned of my condition in a fairly unconventional way. A driving instructor asked me if I had ever had a dyspraxia diagnosis after spotting similar signs in me to his relative with autism.
Dyspraxia, or developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD), typically impacts co-ordination and movement. It is sometimes referred to as the clumsy child syndrome but in reality it is so much more than falling over.
Processing and retaining information is a considerable challenge and it can be hard to put words together. For me, it is an exhausting condition where the signals between the brain and the body become tangled.
While school was not easy for me, being diagnosed with dyspraxia years later still came as a shock and I have always wondered whether I would have struggled as much if the condition had been noticed in school.
Read more from ASN in schools series:
I was inclined to ignore my driving instructor, ready to accept that maybe driving just wasn’t for me.
But when I read up on the condition it made sense: my concentration, spatial........