Support group meeting for kids with Dyspraxia
The Galway Dyspraxia Support Group will hold their first evening meeting next week at the Connacht Hotel – with Mary O’Sullivan, the woman behind the resurgent group, calling on all parents of children with DCD/dyspraxia (which causes motor difficulties) to come along and get informed about the supports available to them in Galway.
Salthill resident Mary, together with a group of parents in a similar situation, decided to renew the group that had been set up by Ger Flaherty in the 1990s – but had since been wound down due to the children involved growing up.
It all began when the ‘Enable Mums’, as the group collectively refer to themselves, came together at a parenting course for children with the disorder at Enable Ireland’s Seamus Quirke Road Children’s Services Centre.
From there, they decided to meet for coffee outside the centre and bring in parents from all service providers – in the hope that they could benefit from one another’s experiences.
“We all said at the parenting course that we learned so much from each other.
“We knew where to go for the physical services but we wanted somewhere where we could talk about it, swap stories about what services worked well for us, what therapies worked well for us – so we said let’s meet for coffee,” explained Mary.
Since then the group, affiliated to the charity Dyspraxia DCD Ireland, has gone from strength to strength.
It now provides an outlet for parents to attain links to a summer camp run by Bushy Park primary school teachers Paul Kilgannon and Sinead O’Sullivan’s Fitness FUNdamentals company as well as various different service providers and clubs around the city and county.
A highlight for Mary has been the establishing of a basketball team dedicated to children with DCD/dyspraxia.
Activities like this, according to Mary, are key as they allow the children to get involved in exercise and fitness whilst also enjoying themselves.
Similarly, local chartered physiotherapist, Karen Roberts provides them with ‘Fun Physio’ – focussing on the development of core strength as means of making daily activities easier.
Mary explained that one of the stand-out moments for her was watching her daughter ride a bike for the first time – something that she never thought possible immediately after her diagnosis.
Thanks to the help of Enable Ireland’s dedicated unit to DCD/dyspraxia, she witnessed the ‘definitely can do’ attitude that occupational therapist, Sarah Butler, had professed to her from the beginning.
“Definitely can do is a nice way of putting it,” said Mary. “It may be just that they are slower to do it or that they will find another way of doing it.”
DCD/dyspraxia is a condition that affects about six per cent of the population – a shocking statistic when it is considered that this would equate to at least one child in every class at primary school level.
The disorder is described as a difficulty in developmental or movement skills. It can affect the body’s fine motor skills, gross motor skills and in some cases of DCD, sensory and processing skills.
For this reason, she believed that raising awareness was hugely important – especially given that it can be a “subtle” progression and hard to see at first glance.
■ The meeting takes place at 8pm on Wednesday, October 12, at the Connacht Hotel in Renmore.