🤹Parent Toolkit

DCD (Developmental Coordination Disorder)

The clinical name for dyspraxia — a difference in how the brain plans and executes movement.

Motor Planning (Praxis)

Imagining, sequencing and carrying out a new movement. The core challenge in dyspraxia.

Knowing how to climb a familiar climbing frame, but freezing on a new one.

Bilateral Coordination

Using both sides of the body together (cutting with scissors, climbing, riding a bike).

Crossing the Midline

Moving a hand across the centre of the body. Needed for reading, writing and sport.

Proprioception

Knowing where your body is in space without looking. Often weak in dyspraxia — leads to bumping, falling, heavy-handed play.

Vestibular Sense

Balance and movement awareness from the inner ear. Affects sitting still, riding a bike, climbing stairs.

Sequencing

Doing steps in the right order — dressing, brushing teeth, getting ready for school. Visual lists help.

Visual-Spatial Skills

Judging distance, layout, where the body fits. Often weak — affects PE, geometry, parking on the page.

Self-Care Skills

Dressing, eating with cutlery, tying laces, using the toilet. Often late milestones in dyspraxia — patience and practice, not pressure.

Backward Chaining

Teaching the LAST step first so the child experiences success, then adding earlier steps.

You do up the coat zip; they pull the tag the last 5cm and feel they ‘did it'.

Movement Breaks

Short bursts of big movement (stairs, jumps, animal walks) that re-set the body for sitting tasks.

Organisational Difficulties

Misplacing kit, forgetting equipment, untidy bedroom. A coordination issue, not laziness.