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icyfire4w5
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30 Dec 2011, 1:52 pm

I guess that you might be thinking, "Why are you posting this online? Why not ask a doctor?" So far, my family had already spent much money on speech therapy and physiotherapy for me. For speech therapy, I got discharged early because the therapist said that many on the waiting list had more severe problems than mine. For physiotherapy, I got discharged after a month or two. Unlike other patients, I was either an injured athlete nor a patient recovering from surgery. Ugh, I thought that my physiotherapist might be inexperienced because she was a fresh grad. She pointed out that my running was dreadfully slow (on treadmill and off treadmill), yet she could not pinpoint why. So yeah, no more money for therapy.

I consulted various doctors and I had even undergone a brain scan. According to them, I am perfectly normal physically. But then, coincidentally, both a doctor and a PE teacher remarked that my muscles seem to age more rapidly than the average person's muscles. The PE teacher kept reminding me never give up on physical activities, otherwise my aging muscles would be worn out much earlier than my peers'. I got officially diagnosed with PDD-NOS. According to the psychologist's report, I performed much better on verbal sections than non-verbal sections during testing. My best section was General Knowledge. (I was surprised that I performed well for Math too.) I mentioned before on this forum that my worst sections were Recognition of Faces and Memorization of Pictures. I flunked them all!
(For Recognition of Faces, I had to memorize certain faces. Then, I had to tell the psychologist whether a particular face was among the "certain faces" or not.)
(For Memorization of Pictures, I had to memorize a scene within a minute. Then, I had to answer questions such as "Where was the dog?" There were only four options--Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left and Bottom Right. I got pissed off when somebody told me, "Oh, this is the easiest section of all! I will surely get full marks!")

Some NTs were so nasty that they kept making fun of my weaknesses. (E.g. They make me run in public, then laugh at me.) An NT, maybe more well-intentioned than those nasty NTs, asked me in private, "Had a fever burnt your brains or something? Your coordination, your voice... Everything seems so "off"." Another NT asked me, "How did your parents manage to give birth to such a weirdo?"

When I told some NTs that I suspected that I have dyspraxia, they were like, "Don't find excuses for yourself! Practice makes perfect! You can do it!" (And some NTs shot me dirty looks when I told them that I couldn't help them out because I couldn't blow balloons. No matter how hard I blew, the balloon just remained flat.)

When I compared myself to my peers, I knew that I was "off". When I compared myself to the rest of my family, I realized that I was seriously "off".
(E.g. Everyone in my family can sing beautifully except me.)

Art
1. When I copy any image, I usually can't even get its proportions right. When I have to draw without referring to anything, my mind remains blank. Once, we had to draw flames for a Lit project. The teacher asked me why my flames resembled tulips.
2. I hate cutting stuff up with scissors because I just can't cut in a straight line. Strange but true.
3. When I apply glue, I tend to apply too much or too little glue.
4. I don't understand most origami instructions. So far, three or four people have already given up on teaching me how to fold a paper crane.
5. More than one person mentioned that my handwriting is easily recognizable. My "a" resembles "o" and my "s" resembles "l". I write using so much force that I leave dents on paper.

Music
1. I'm really tone-deaf. I can't tell whether a note is higher or lower in pitch as compared to another note. I speak in a whiny monotone that even I myself can't tolerate.
2. I learnt piano, but I quit relatively early. Unlike my sisters, I couldn't even memorize a single tune like "Happy Birthday". For aural, my clapping is wrong, my singing is off-key. I can't even tell whether a piece is in 2/4 time, 3/4 time or 4/4 time. When my sisters played notes on the piano, I guessed every note wrong, but when we reversed roles, they could guess almost every note correctly.

Sports (Motor skills?)
1. I got into lots of trouble for flunking my physical fitness test every year. My classmates blamed me for pulling the class's performance down. A PE teacher said half-jokingly and half-angrily that he wished that the govt could exempt me from taking any physical fitness test. I was the only one who flunked sprinting every year despite numerous re-tests. No offence, but people always told me stufff such as "Oooooh, sprinting is so easy and effortless compared to long distance running." (My running is so slow that I would rather miss a bus than chase after it. I miss buses when I chase after them.)
2. I once begged my sister until she agreed to film me while I jogged. My knees were so bent that I seemed as though I was dwarfing myself on purpose. I tried straightening my knees, but once I straightened my knees, they were "locked", causing me such discomfort that I could not jog with straightened knees. Additionally, my mom remarked that I was actually "bouncing up and down" rather than running.
3. I don't understand what people mean when they say that I walk like a duck, but I do understand what they mean when they say that I walk like a horse. When I walk, I need to bend each knee slightly upwards so that I can move each foot forward. I just can't straighten my knees like others do--my knees just get tensed up and "locked" and I experience pain and stiffness.
4. My mom once brought me to a masseur. When he massaged me, he kept sighing that my muscles were dreadfully stiff. He added that "only old ladies would have such stiff muscles".
5. I must admit that my muscles are weak. When I do sit-ups, I give up very quickly because I experience pain. When I do crunches, someone said, "You seem as if you are eager to break your own neck".
6. Others usually can catch the ball that I throw, but I usually can't catch the ball that they throw. As kids, when my classmates threw beanbags into the air, they could catch the beanbags effortlessly, but when I threw beanbags into the air, they usually landed on the ground. In conclusion, my hand-eye coordination is "off".
7. I can't skip. I once got scolded by my teammates during a school camp because of this. (Long story...) I either jump too early or jump too late.
8. For adventure camps, there was one component best described as "jumping down from a low wall". The first time I did it, I wounded both knees. Years later, I did it again. This time, some of my teammates laughed at me. They said that I "jumped down in such a funny way".
9. I have a phobia of losing my balance and falling down. I'm ok when I climb up stairs, but I'm usually slow and jittery when I climb down stairs since I can't see how steep each step is. I usually grab the handrail as tightly as I can. I avoid escalators if possible because I tend to hesitate, hence offending the people behind me. Some NTs say that my phobia makes them angry because I am making a fool of myself. :(
10. I am very bad at estimating distances and depths. Once, my classmates had to coax me until I summoned enough courage to cross over a drain. After crossing, I realized how narrow the drain was.

Two additional details... (According to my mum...)
1. I started off as a left-hander, but she coaxed me into becoming a right-hander. For as long as I can remember, I can't write anything legible with my left hand. :)
2. I started off walking on tip toes.



Jp896
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30 Dec 2011, 10:17 pm

I have a lot of symptoms similar to yours. I had difficulty learning to tie my shoe. I'm horrible at anything that involves fine motor skill. I have a severe speech impediment: every word I say is wrong. I couldn't hold a pencil right till sixth grade. My writing is horribly sloppy. I still can't hold a fork right, or do jumping jacks. I have low muscle tone and was one of the slowest runners in my school. I actually have a hard time walking slow: It's much easier for me to walk fast. My only difference is that my muscles are abnormally loose, which makes sense because I have low muscle tone.

I have difficulty crossing the street because of my inability to judge the distance of oncoming traffic. My verbal iq is significantly higher than my performance iq, my highest sub test being mental arithmetic. In fact the only way I can learn is through reasoning and problem solving, which I actually found to be an advantage in college. I was diagnosed with dyspraxia in first grade. I'm able to hide my disabilities ,with my speech and unathleticism being the exception. While I'm still picked on because of my speech, I find that most people don't care about my speech impediment. I think that being made fun of by a few people can seem like being teased by a lot of people. You seem like a really good writer. My advice to you is to 1)keep working on your fine motor skills(mainly jogging) maybe look further into your stiff muscles, 2)try as best as you can to hide things that your bad at (I failed geometry, but got a easy B in honor calculus) 3) surround yourself with good people 4)Try to take classes and find a potential career choice in things that your good at which seems to be verbal subjects i.e. writing, history, and abstract mathematics just to name a few. Most people I go to college with would be surprised if they saw me try to cross the street or learn something by pure memorization.



Dogfield
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Joined: 4 Dec 2011
Age: 45
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01 Jan 2012, 10:42 pm

I have Dyspraxia, and mainly it manifests in abysmal handwriting, and terrified driving instructors.

I can ride a bike, but it took me forever to learn.

I was forever 'tripping over nothing' in primary school.

I write in print and in capitals so that I can read my writing. Teachers used to love me for that!

Also left handed.