Developmental coordination disorder (DCD), also known as developmental motor coordination disorder, developmental dyspraxia, or simply dyspraxia (from Ancient Greekpraxis 'activity'), is a motor disorder[1] characterized by impaired coordination of physical movements as a result of brain messages not being accurately transmitted to the body.
Deficits in fine or gross motor skills movements interfere with activities of daily living. It is often described as disorder in skill acquisition, where the learning and execution of coordinated motor skills is substantially below that expected given the individual's chronological age.
Difficulties may present as clumsiness, slowness and inaccuracy of performance of motor skills (e.g., catching objects, using cutlery, handwriting, riding a bike, use of tools or participating in team sports or swimming). It is often accompanied by difficulty with organisation and/or problems with attention, working memory and time management.
At least, that's what Wikipedia will tell you. Alas, I find that dyspraxia is often a poorly understood disorder, even among dyspraxics.
I often describe it as having the motor control of a small child, and that's what it often feels like.
Dyspraxia affects things like writing and tying shoes, Wikipedia says that too. But that's such a vague thing.
Some of you might know that there's a simpler way of tying shoes that is taught to children, before they have the motor function for the more advanced way. I was never able to learn that more advanced way. In fact, I still struggle quite a bit with the "simple way".
I started at school like other kids. My writing wasn't great, and i'd need to correct a lot of mistakes, in fact i needed a special pen that was easier to erase, just because of how frequent it was. Wikipedia tells us that "brain messages [are] not being accurately transmitted to the body".
What does that mean? For writing, it might mean something like what i lived. Constantly accidentally writing the wrong letter, making the wrong shapes, needing to correct. That takes time, that means judgment. But don't worry, the people judging you will get tired of you not improving, they'll stop caring that you're bad at it.
It means writing slow. Not just slow, but noticeably slow. Too slow, far too slow. It means being a few times slower than anyone around you, and it means having to speed up, at all cost, to keep up. It means having the speed up not being enough. It means speeding up more, and more, until your writing is mostly unreadable to yourself, and having that not be enough, still. To slow, and too messy at once. It means being written off for your writing being unreadable, or for not having the time to write everything. Most likely both at once.
For most, it means a lot of pain, it means holding your pen like a child, or in really wierd ways. It can mean finding the "normal way" of holding pens way too hard. It means having the coordination of a small child.
It meant having the luck to get to use a computer, having to do mandatory teaching of how to type on a computer, because our parents managed to notice we struggled, and after all that, knowing it wasn't enough. It means focusing hard on every movement you do, tiring yourself because of that focus.
It means breaking glasses and plates, it means hurting yourself accidentally.
It means struggling to, if not being outright unable to drive. Losing balance, falling. Difficulty with basic workplace tasks, ridicule, difficulty to even get work.
It means struggling in most sports because your brain doesn't work well. Means being unable to interface with a society that expects a level of ability you don't have.
It means starting out not too bad, and watching everyone get better, as you seemingly failed to improve. Put a pin in that.
It means struggling to speak because your tongue refuses to move in the right way.
But that's not all that it is.
What does dyspraxia feel like?
Dyspraxia is a strange beast. It's invisible to others, as many are, and as many too, it's too often invisible too yourself.
Dyspraxia is being bad. It's being worse at everything than most people are. It's seeing everyone get better than you at everything that you care about, in a quarter of your time. It's struggling, and feeling like you're at fault for struggling.
It's feeling like you could do it if you actually tried, if you stopped being so stupid, so bad.
It feels like being careful of everything you do because you're afraid of fucking up (again)
I played badminton for a year, a bit more. The number of times I managed to touch the ball can be counted on two hands. It means having to deal with that, with knowing how bad, how worthless you are. Having to deal with that feeling, and not being able to fix it, even though it feels like you should.
It feels like if I actually tried I should be able to play this one rhythm game! It's just pressing one key on rhytm, how do i even manage to miss all qtes? It's like I'm not even trying.
It feels like i shoudl be able ot type right no, I mean it can't be that had, and everyone achieves it fine, and usuallt 2 to fine times faster. it's having to correct thpe after typao , usuallt until you get tyred of correcting them and just let some pfo them slip theough because fuck, yiûve spent the last minute on tist one word that yoûve written fice times and failed five timeS.
It feels like your brain works wrong (it does). And one of the most pernicious things about it, in my experience is how it starts. How you start with a new activity, game, or whatever. How everyone around you including you is discovering and learning, and how they expect you to be bad at it. You're bad at it, but only more or less the normal amount. Sometimes you're even pretty good at it! Used to overcompensating for your disability in other ways. And as time goes, as people get better, getting left behind, because the expectation of ability climbs up. It means not being able to take pride in being good at anything, because you know it'd just take a week and some effort for an abled to outclass you (and nobody would recognise that it was much harder for you, would they?). It means having to relive that feeling of being bad, worthless, and not even being able to warn people about it, because, you're not bad at it (yet)! You'll learn (you won't)! Just keep trying (you'll try, harder than them).
It feels liek failing and failt?. Over and over, failing and failing. And having the world tell you that you're wrong for it, that you should try harder. And this isn't a metaphor.
A thing I often like to say, is talk about this or that game I struggle with playing. It always elicit the same exact reaction. Everyone assumes that I just have less experience, that I've done less, that I haven't tried enough, or that it's not that bad. Of course, it's worse than they can imagine it. But they have to protect their ego as a good person, and to protect ableist systems.
It feels like being mocked because your brain is broken, doesn't work right. And like everyone that doesn't mock you minimizing your struggle because it's what "nice people" do. They erase disability. It's not that bad. You're not that bad. It feels like knowing you are that bad, but being forbidden to recognizing it, like no matter what you say people will have a nice little piece to say about how hard it is and how normal it is that you're struggling actually (and feeling like an asshole for even complaining), like you're not actually strugging, you're doing great (you're not). Like saying, don't worry. You're not broken (and knowing you are). You're not disabled. You're not like them. (you are them)
This all is far from unique to dyspraxia specifically. This is common to ableism, in general. And that brings us to the next point
We're just girls on tumblr. I don't think we can change that much big things, not easily, at least. So I'll focus on the small. The interpersonal.
But if you wonder idily, the big is a great work. it's restructuring how we do things, to be more permissive. It's restructuring how we think about things, about everything. About the people that are bad at things, that can't do it, that hurt and are hurt. It's restructuring the world away from meritocracy as default. From performance in an activity as a moral good. It's having robust systems of care, and of help. It's big work.
The small work is stuff you can do right now. Stuff you should do right now.
The small work is not minimizing people's experiences. It's learning that when someone say they struggle with something, they're probably understating the amount to which they struggle. It's learning that even the small stuff matters. Learning that it's important, and that it has to be treated that way.
The small work is not judging what people do. Not the typos, not the way they might simplify or not do some things, not the wording, not the wierd offputting stuff. Not the laziness, not the cheats in videogames, nothing. Not judging is free, easy, and good for everyone.
The small work is learning how it's like, and not making excuses, not minimizing, it's learning how you can help, in every way that you can help. It's making small meaningful changes in what you do, and how you do them, to accomodate people. It's helping and giving tips while also being cognisant that they might not know the thing you're giving tips on, but they know themselves, and trusting them to interface between the two.
For dyspraxia, it's forcing people to rely less on fine motor function. Doing things or making things that can be done more easily, that rely on other things.
From a previous piece, for games, it means binding multiple actions to less buttons to worry less about what to press, it means providing alternate systems like mouse (better for buttons, bad for targeting), controllers (better for buttons), touchscreens (great for targeting). Providing things that rely less on strict timing, that are more lenient. Providing a separate "are you sure" button for important actions, being more lenient, in general.
The small work is helping others learn, because there aren't many of us but there's a lot of you.
The small work is foundational to the big work. It starts with learning, before things can get better.
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