keatulie:

even tho they’re well-meaning, I’ve found the news articles shared around Ryan’s condition kinda vague and uninformative, with them not rly saying a whole lot apart from ‘difficulty with gross and fine motor skills and can be perceived as clumsy’, so here’s some more detailed points about dyspraxia:

• feeling like you have no natural intuition for facing new tasks; other people understand instructions much faster or instinctively know how to proceed without help, whereas you struggle.

• poor auditory processing and reading comprehension. not being able to initially register what others are saying to you, and having difficulty separating background noise from other sounds, which can cause distraction. having to reread a section multiple times for it to sink in, and occasionally missing areas of text without realising.

• texture and touch sensitivity; may be mildly to greatly uncomfortable in certain clothing, or as a response to contact (I personally hate being lightly tapped/brushed but am fine w/ people being overly tactile).

• difficulty with self-grooming, such as the motion of brushing hair and/or teeth, putting on/removing clothes and accessories (e.g. crossing arms and pulling shirts over head), tying knots/shoelaces, or fastening zips, buttons, and hooks, especially out of sight.

• being sensitive to loud noise and having different a perception of what is a high volume to others, especially when sudden, which can cause sensory overload.

• issues with short-term memory and retaining information; basically, losing your place in a series of directions, or forgetting recent events before they have a chance to pass into long-term memory.

• poor spatial awareness, may knock into objects or people despite them seeming like obvious obstacles to others.

• generally weak balance and an awkward gait (I had to manually learn how to move my arms as I walked growing up, which eventually became a natural unconscious action.)

• poor hand-eye coordination and no sense of depth perception. usually manifests as struggling to judge the distance of objects/environments – catching a ball, crossing through traffic, etc. – which can result in a fear of heights or sense of vertigo (Ryan’s hesitance at climbing is prob this + being unsure of how far the next hand/foot grip is.)

• can have low muscle tone and overall weak body strength; may become easily fatigued or find basic exercise/lifting strenuous.

• uncomfortable and impractical hand grip of utensils and other tools, often in a closed fist shape, much like a toddler. leads to untidy and “childish” looking handwriting, and can cause cramping after prolonged use. 

• generally holds self in an awkward and “infantile” way, like how babies seem hunched or stiff.

negative response to these traits can cause other problems, such as low self-esteem through bullying, avoidance coping, and impostor syndrome. dyspraxic people may also stim when excited or stressed.