Parent-carer awareness and understanding of dyspraxia: Implications for child development support practices

Abstract

Dyspraxia manifests as difficulty in thinking, planning, and executing planned movements or tasks. Dyspraxia affects roughly 5–6% of school aged children. This study aimed to explore parent-carer’s awareness and understanding of dyspraxia and the resources they self-perceived to need to manage their children with dyspraxia. Informants were 15 parents from the Cape Peninsula, South Africa. They completed semi-structured interviews on their knowledge of and indicators of dyspraxia in their children and resources they presently utilised or could seek to use. Thematic analysis of the data suggested the parent-carers to be aware of motor rather than cognition oriented limitations. Additionally, parent-carers accessed or sought educator assistance from the school system. Health professionals and educators working with parents of children with dyspraxia can expect them to report reliably on behavioural characteristics of their children’s abilities important for treatment support interventions.

Keywords:

• awareness
• Cape Town
• children
• dyspraxia
• preschool
• understanding

ORCID

Athena Pedro http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6518-4854