Customer Reviews

Developmental Dyspraxia: Identification and Intervention - A Manual for Parents and Professionals

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I actually have a copy of her first edition (which was published only in the UK). It is excellent. As a parent of a child with severe motor and oral dyspraxia/apraxia I know exactly how difficult it can be to find qualified info on this subject. Most of what you can find (which isn't much) deals with identifying it. I already know my son has this. I need to know what to do about it. This is one of the few books that deals with exactly how to "treat" the motor dyspraxia. If you have a child or student with dyspraxia/apraxia, get this book. When I read it I said, "finally, a book that adequately describes my child." By the way, this affliction is generally known as dyspraxia in the UK and as apraxia in the US. Also, there are 2 types - motor and oral, but most people will find that their afflicted child has some of both types. I hope this helps someone!

This book does not dwell greatly on ideals or hypotheses, nor on soothing chat. The reader will find practical, well-organized information on a good variety of ways to assess and train a child's abilities without highly specialized equipment.

I was impressed by the differences that generalized training in motor skills seemed to make in specific tasks such as handwriting, and also by the reports that "normal" children helping with lunchtime training programs enjoyed the experience, and felt closer to the previously isolated "clumsy" children, with their associated tendency to be irritable and easily distracted (not to mention distracting!). The scope of the book really does cover both parents and schools -- this book is grounded in solid observation and experience.

Ms. Portwood stresses that intervention helps at all ages, often bolstering self-esteem and social skills along with growing achievement in motor skills.I am looking forward to using this book with my son.

I believe that Dyspraxia is also known as Developmental Coordination Disorder in the U.S.

If you can have just one book on dyspraxia, this should be it. And if you have a child with some type of apraxia diagnosis, please read this book too. Parents of children with dysgraphia (poor handwriting) may also bennefit.

If your child with apraxia has profound speech problems and cannot communicate verbally at all, this will not be enough by itself, but will be useful to help support speech therapy, especially if your child is also learning sign language but is having some motor problems with that as well.

If you are trying to help a person with aquired apraxia (brain injury or stroke,) you will probably want something different.

In the US our children tend to get the diagnosis of "apraxia" "developmental apraxia" "speech dyspraxia" "childhood apraxia" "verbal dyspraxia" or "global apraxia" more often than they get a "developmental dyspraxia" diagnosis. These different lables are supposed to indicate subtle differences in the problems and needs these people face. However, from a practical standpoint, most of the methods designed to help someone with one of these developmental dyspraxia will help someone with one of the related diagnosises, sometimes with just slight modifications.

This book is full of strategies and specific sugestions to help people facing problems with apraxia that is present since birth or childhood (developmental dyspraxia, childhood apraxia) as opposed to people who have suffered from a brain injury or stroke. It covers a wide range of ages and the sugestions are concrete and very doable. I am a parent of both a child with autism and another child with developmental dypraxia/speech dyspraxia and this is one of the most valuable resources I own for helping my boys overcome their motor planning and coordination problems. It is also very helpful for speech problems as well. I am able to create a useful home program to suppliment the activities done at school and in therapy using this book. And the school personel have also been impressed with this book. I like this book much better than the Marshalla books which seem geared to kids whose impairment is so profound. (Don't misunderstand me, her books a very good, I do like them, just less complete.) Her books don't offer many suggestions for children whose issues include other motor functions (like handling silverware) but which many children with speech apraxia also face. (Of course she is an SLP and not an OT so it's not really the point of her work, but we parents will be concerned with both.) Also, she offers few suggestions once an apraxic child becomes verbal but is still not making sense where as this book is aimed more at those kids who have a range of issues and who can talk to some degree. Not only is word pronunciation linked to motor skills, but also word order in sentences, use of pronouns and many other skills require an internal coordination that mirrors external coordination. If we can remediate these oganizational factors in our children then their other therapies (speech, ABA, floortime, social skill building, etc.) become more effective. There is so little information on this group of disorders that is truely useful to parents and teachers, but this book is very complete. It is very well done and has information useful in both settings. Indeed, most of the examples given in the book involve school settings, so professionals should also find this book to be very valuable.

Good luck to all of you parents and teachers who work daily with these kids!