History of Dyspraxia
One of the earliest mentions of ‘Clumsiness’ comes from Greek Physician Galens. Galens stated that individuals who are ‘ambilevous or left-handed on both sides have not the use of either: agility and vigour who are not gymnastically composed: nor actively use those parts. In 1893 the English dialect society testified to this Greek legacy in its definition of, “cack-handed”. Stating that it referred to: ‘extremely awkward and unhandy: clumsy to the last degree”. While modern, medicine has disproven this suggested association between clumsiness and handedness, the early modern viewpoint above demonstrates something about the social value that has been conferred on dexterity over, even moderate, clumsiness.
Dyspraxia can be traced to the mid-19th century. One of the first terms used to describe motor difficulties, from the mid-nineteenth century, was apraxia. This was stated to be the loss of ability to execute or carry out skilled movements and gestures, despite having the physical ability and desire to perform them’. One of the most influential early thinkers on the topic of apraxia, especially in terms of speech and language was the English neurologist, John Hughlings Jackson who was the first utilise the term dyspraxia in 1863. In 1866, Hughlings Jackson described a patient who ‘seems to have lost much of his power to do anything he is told to do, even with those muscles that are not paralysed. The patient will be unable to put out his tongue when we ask him, although he will use it well in semi-involuntary actions, such as eating and swallowing. He will not make the particular grimace he is told to do, even when we make one for him to imitate. There is power in his muscles and in the centres for the co-ordination of muscular groups, but he the whole man, or the “will” cannot set them a-going.
Collier first described developmental coordination disorder as "congenital maladroitness’’ in the early 1900’s. Additionally in the 1900’s, Liepmann described three types of limb apraxia: limb-kinetic apraxia, ideomotor apraxia, and ideational apraxia. Then in 1925 French doctors and therapists began using the term "motor weakness.’’ or "psychomotor syndrome" after noticing that many children with disabilities displayed motor difficulties. Also In 1925, Dupre and others referred to the debilite motrice (motorically deficient). Moving forward to 1937: Dr. Samuel Orton studied the condition and called it "one of the six most common developmental disorders worldwide. Orton was responsible for substantial research between the 1920’s and 1940’s that placed congenital apraxia as he referred to it on the scientific map of specific learning difficulties. Orton was also the first individual to utilise the term clumsiness. In the 1940s, Anna-Lisa Annell, a Swedish child psychiatrist, described a child with dyspraxia-like difficulties. Annell's description included the child being awkward, poor at games, and having trouble with concentration.
There was then a gap between the 1940’s and the 1960’s as interest in dyspraxic research disappeared. This was reevaluated In the 1960’s when a series of case studies were carried out. In 1962, the first article to refer to clumsy children appeared in the British Medical Journal with no named author. Moving forward to 1972 Dr. A. Jean Ayres referred to dyspraxia as ‘an order of sensory integration.’ In 1973 Dr. Sasson Gubbay referred to ‘clumsy child syndrome’ in their research titled clumsy children in Normal Schools. Within the study approximately 50 children with dyspraxia were studied in detail. The results showed important educational, neurological and electroencephalographic differences from their peers.
The term dyspraxia was first widely used in the 1980’s despite the fact that Julian de Ajuriaguerra and Mira Stambak coined the term "dyspraxia" in 1964. However, when first created the clinical term was treated very differently according to which explanatory model was adopted. The earliest use of the word in The Times was in the mid to late 1990s. The Sunday Times had one mention in 1986. The Dyspraxia Foundation was also created in 1987. In 1989 the term clumsy child was discontinued as a harmful term. Sensory Integration and Praxis Test (SIPT) was developed by Jean Ayres as an assessment tool in the 1980s designed to test for dyspraxia symptoms in children aged four to eight. Since the 1980s the term developmental dyspraxia-diagnosis has gone out of favour. In 1987 the DSM-IV-Text Revision stated that developmental coordination disorder to children whose motor coordination is less than expected for chronologic age and intelligence is not due to an identifiable medical disorder, and interferes with daily activities or academic achievement. Fairley House School in London was established in 1982 as one of the first schools in the United Kingdom to specialise in the education of children with dyslexia and other specific learning differences, including dyspraxia.
In the 1990s, dyspraxia was not widely recognised in society, and there was no agreement on a precise definition of the condition. The first reference to dyspraxia in UK parliament did not occur until 1997. In 2010 Frances Beaumont founded Dyspraxia UK to provide specialist assessment and diagnosis for adults with dyspraxia. Also In 2010, the Equality Act classified dyspraxia as a protected disability, meaning that individuals with dyspraxia are entitled to reasonable adjustments to help them overcome their difficulties.
Author: Charis Hawkley
LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/CharisGambon
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