Dyspraxia, also known as developmental coordination disorder, is a neurodevelopmental disorder similar to dyslexia and dyscalculia. Dyspraxia causes problems with coordination across both gross and fine motor skills. In a classroom, therefore, you might see children who have trouble holding a pencil or pen, or who seem clumsy, and are more likely to trip and fall, or bump into things as they move around.

However, dyspraxia also has other effects. Like many other neurodevelopmental disorders, it can also affect perceptions of time and organisational ability. Indeed, many adults with dyspraxia report that these effects are often far harder to manage than the coordination problems.

This page provides advice for teachers about how they can help children and young people with dyspraxia to thrive in their classrooms, and in school more generally.

The Practical Effects of Dyspraxia

The big issue for teachers is what practical effects dyspraxia will have on the children in their classroom. The answer is that this will depend on the child or young person.

Like dyslexia and other neurodevelopmental conditions, everyone is slightly different (see box).

Dyspraxia is a condition that affects how information is processed.

Some of this information is between brain and body—but there can also be other issues.

We can divide the issues into several areas.

• Motor coordination issues are associated with moving and using muscles. Children and young people with dyspraxia may have problems with gross movements (e.g. walking, running, catching, throwing) or finer movements (e.g. writing, holding a pencil, or using scissors).

• Spatial awareness issues are about how you relate to things around you. That is, they affect how you perceive your location in relation to other things. Dyspraxia makes it more likely that you will knock things, or fall over. Balance can also be affected.

• Time management and organisational issues affect how you organise tasks and yourself. People with dyspraxia often have trouble organising tasks, or sequencing steps. They may have difficulty working out how long tasks will take, so often miss deadlines. They often lose things, or forget where they have put them. In school, children with dyspraxia may struggle to hand in homework on time, or to appreciate that they need to work now for exams in two years' time.

• Memory and cognitive processing issues are about how you remember and manage information. Dyspraxia can affect working memory, making it harder to remember sequences of instructions. It also affects processing speed, so it may take longer for someone with dyspraxia to understand new concepts or tasks.

• Sensory sensitivity and emotional issues are about heightened emotions and awareness of the world. People with dyspraxia often have more sensitivity to noise or other sensory stimuli. They may be easily distracted, or need to wear certain types of fabrics to be comfortable. They may also find emotional regulation more difficult.

Supporting Children with Dyspraxia at School

It should therefore be clear that children and young people with dyspraxia may need considerable help and support to manage school.

It should also be clear that they may need different types of help at different stages of school. This help may be both practical and emotional.

Some of the support that may be helpful at different stages is set out below.

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1. Primary School

Teachers can help children in their classrooms by:

• Providing adaptive tools to help with particular tasks, such as larger pencils or extra-large grips. Squared paper, rather than lined, can also help with letter and number placement.

• Providing extra help with tasks involving physical coordination. For example, you could provide someone to scribe for them or enable the use of text-to-speech software, or have a teaching assistant find their games kit if they need to change during the day. You should also be prepared to help with tasks involving scissors. Similarly, you can make tasks easier by providing 'fill in the blanks' or multiple choice worksheets, rather than requiring extensive writing.

• Changing tasks or emphasis to avoid a focus on things that children with dyspraxia find difficult. For example, don't comment on handwriting and presentation; instead look at ideas. On days with a games lesson, why not ask all the children to attend school in tracksuits, not their everyday clothes?

• Use visual planners and aids to show progress through the school day. Many young children have trouble with time, so this may help more than simply neurodivergent children.

• Give warning about task changes. It may help to give oral indications of time passing, such as a 'five minute warning' before a lesson change, or the end of a task. You should also briefly say why that matters. For example, "Five minutes to go, so you should now be writing your last few sentences".

• Break tasks down into smaller steps. Doing this at primary school level is likely to help all children learn to process and manage bigger tasks. However, it may be essential to support children with dyspraxia or other learning difficulties.

• Provide plenty of breaks. Research has shown that all children benefit from regular 'movement breaks' during learning—a few minutes to get up and move about every 20 to 30 minutes at most. However, this is particularly important for children with learning difficulties, who are working much harder to process all the information.

• Encourage children to ask for help. It can be hard to ask for more information, or the explanation repeated, especially in front of your peers. Establish an environment where asking for more help is not just permitted, but actively encouraged. It may also be helpful to offer to repeat instructions, or 'go over that again', rather than expecting anyone to ask. You may find that more than one child is relieved by that offer!

• Set realistic time limits for tasks and homework. Set a time limit that you believe will give everyone enough time to practise the task or activity sufficiently. This doesn't mean that you expect everyone to finish in that time. Some children will finish, and some will not. However, you are going to stop the task at the end of that time, and it doesn't matter whether everyone has finished, because everyone will have spent enough time on it.

• Involve parents. Work closely with the parents of any children with learning difficulties. You want to be using similar strategies at home and school, and ensuring that both environments are as supportive as possible.

• Praise effort not achievement. We know that this is important in fostering a growth mindset, so you are probably already using this technique. However, it is even more important for children with learning difficulties, who are likely to be working doubly hard on every task simply to keep up.

• Plan the seating. Children with dyspraxia may be more easily distracted. An alternative position in the class may reduce the distractions in their eyeline. However, you need to manage this carefully, because you don't want to single them out as 'different'.

• Advocate for the child within the school. Primary school teachers spend a lot of time with their class. They are therefore uniquely placed to advocate within the school for children with particular needs. This is key in getting accommodations that the individual teacher cannot provide, such as additional resources.

• Adjust your expectations. At primary school, you probably have expectations about what children should be able to do by certain points in their school career: sit still, listen, and so on. Unfortunately, these expectations simply don't work for children with specific learning difficulties. Adjust them to fit the children you are teaching.

2. Secondary School

Teachers can help children in their classrooms by:

• Finding out more about the child and their needs. Children with learning difficulties usually have an individual education plan (IEP) or education, health and care plan (EHCP) that sets out their needs and the accommodations required to support them. Familiarise yourself with the IEPs or EHCPs of any children or young people that you teach, and work out how you are going to try to accommodate their needs.

• Providing adaptive tools to help with particular tasks. Some of the tools from primary school may still be relevant, but older children may also benefit from use of computers, especially with speech-to-text software.

• Allow the use of aids such as smartwatches and alarms. Many schools do not allow smartwatches to be worn. However, these are an ideal tool for young people with dyspraxia who need alarms to remind them about changes in activity, or when they have to be somewhere different.

• Allowing alternative approaches to completing tasks, such as a video or audio report instead of a written one.

• Giving structured tasks with clear directions. Presenting tasks or assignments in steps, rather than as a whole, can make it much easier for children with dyspraxia to process what is required.

• Use 'fill in the blanks' or multiple-choice worksheets as much as possible. There will be times when this is not possible—but it seems a reasonable approach to note-taking or checking understanding.

• Don't make 'completing the classwork' part of homework. You are adding to the workload of children who are already finding things harder. It may seem fair, but this is the difference between equity and equality. Instead, consider setting 'stretch work' for those who want it.

• Encourage young people to ask for help. It can be really hard for teenagers and pre-teens to ask for help, especially in front of their peers. It may be helpful to offer drop-in sessions, or make yourself available at particular times to provide more help, and encourage all children to use that opportunity. You can also offer to repeat instructions, rather than expecting children to ask.

• Praise effort, not outcome. There is almost certainly an enormous amount of effort going into accomplishing each task. It may seem very little to hand your homework in on time, but a child with dyspraxia may have had to work very hard to do that, and it is nice to have that effort recognised.

• Plan the seating. Many children with learning difficulties benefit from being closer to the board or teacher, where the teacher can see what they are doing more easily. Facing away from distractions like the window can also help. However, be careful how you manage this, because you don't want to single out children with dyspraxia or other specific learning difficulties, or separate them from their friends—at least, no more than anyone else.

• Break up lessons. As lessons get longer at secondary school, this can be more challenging for children with dyspraxia (and other specific learning difficulties). Try to provide a variety of tasks, and opportunities to move about wherever possible.

• Adjust your expectations. It is no good having a belief that children or young people 'should' be capable of behaving in certain ways. Children with specific learning difficulties don't work that way, and you need to adapt what you are doing to their abilities.

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And Finally...

The right teacher, and the right approach to teaching and learning, can make an enormous positive difference to a child or young person with dyspraxia.

Feeling included and heard has a huge impact on self-esteem and self-confidence—and that in turn sets a child up for life.

Similarly, the wrong approach can also have a huge negative impact. Hopefully this page will help you to take the right approach to children with dyspraxia in your classes.

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