Dyspraxia: When Learning Feels Hard to Hold Together

Written by Margo Fourman, MEd (Inclusion and Diversity), BSc Psychology (Open), Specialist SpLD Tutor and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, with extensive experience supporting neurodivergent learners and their families.

Parents often come to us because their child struggles with things that other children seem to manage automatically. They may be described as clumsy, awkward, disorganised or forgetful — or as a child who “could do it if they tried”. Learning can look fragile. Understanding may appear in flashes, then disappear when the child is asked to explain, write or organise their ideas.

In school, dyspraxic children are not always seen as clearly capable. When they produce the right answer, it may be assumed they were guessing or copying. When they cannot show how they arrived there, their understanding is questioned.

What families are often noticing is not a lack of intelligence or effort, but a pattern that only makes sense when dyspraxia is understood properly.

Dyspraxia, also referred to as Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), is often described as a physical coordination difficulty. This is usually how it is first explained to families.

In our experience, that description is incomplete.

Dyspraxia, now commonly referred to as Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), has been recognised for decades. When it first began to appear in educational settings, there was little guidance on how to support children beyond naming the difficulty. Much of what now informs effective support has emerged from long-term observation of how coordination, planning and learning interact in real classrooms.

We work with dyspraxia as a neurodevelopmental difference that affects not only movement, but learning. Planning, organisation and the ability to show understanding rely on the same underlying systems. When those systems are under strain, learning becomes harder to hold together.

For many families, the most visible difficulties are not only physical. They appear most clearly in school, homework and daily organisation.

In our experience, many dyspraxic children do not have a secure or reliable sense of their body in space.

Balance can be fragile. Sitting upright on a school chair may require constant, unconscious effort. Some children are working hard simply to stay stable and not fall off their chair. This effort is rarely recognised, but it uses energy and working memory.

When the body is not settled, learning has to compete with the task of staying upright. This helps explain why something as simple as working on the floor, or sitting at a low coffee table, can make a noticeable difference. When physical stability improves, capacity for learning often improves with it.

A reliable sense of the body supports consistency.

In maths, this matters at a very basic level. Understanding that three is still three until something is added or taken away depends on a stable internal framework. The number three always represents three things.

For many dyspraxic learners, holding onto that consistency can be difficult. Numbers and symbols may feel less anchored in space and relationship. This is not just about recognising numbers and symbols. It is about maintaining a stable sense of quantity, position and meaning.

When that framework is unreliable, maths can feel confusing even when teaching is clear and effort is high.

Difficulties on paper are primarily about output and organisation.

This can include leaving enough space to finish a word before the end of the line, keeping columns or rows aligned, or placing elements clearly within a drawing. In younger children, this may show up as faces with eyes or mouths placed outside the outline of the face.

Ideas are often present. Executing them in a planned, consistent way requires organisation that is effortful.

Many dyspraxic children struggle with motor planning and fine motor control. Moving the fingers easily and with precision cannot be assumed.

Learning letter formation relies on muscle memory. For dyspraxic learners, this develops more slowly and requires far more repetition than it does for other children. Letters may remain poorly formed, even when the child is trying hard.

When handwriting consumes a large proportion of available energy, there is little capacity left for spelling, sentence structure or developing ideas.

This is one reason dyspraxic children often know far more than they can show on paper. The other is that intuitive, non-linear — sometimes described as “cloud” — thinking can be hard to translate into steps or language that others expect.

Dyspraxic children often have difficulty with prepositions and connectives.

This is not because they fail to understand relationships. In our experience, they can often see situations from many perspectives at once.

The difficulty is that communication requires choosing one position and one direction, then guiding the listener from there. Dyspraxic learners may not realise that to communicate with others, they need to “stand in one place” and describe what they see step by step.

This affects written language. Ideas may shift perspective. Sentences may not link clearly.

The same issue can affect maths. Concepts such as forwards and backwards, before and after, or order and direction rely on a single reference point. When all directions feel equally valid, sequence becomes harder to establish.

Dyspraxia also shows up beyond the classroom.

Organising belongings, remembering routines, packing bags and moving between tasks all rely on planning and sequencing. When these processes are effortful, daily life requires constant compensation.

Dyspraxic children are often working harder than anyone else simply to keep up. Much of that effort is invisible.

When even a few barriers are reduced, something important often appears.

Dyspraxic learners tend to be highly diligent and persistent. When learning becomes physically and cognitively manageable, those qualities emerge as strengths.

Longstanding work in this area has observed that combining movement-based learning with broader nutritional support can be less onerous for learners than repeatedly practising isolated skills. This helps explain why integrated approaches are often more sustainable over time.

At Oxford Specialist Tutors, physical learning and academic learning go hand in hand. Supporting the body often supports learning.

We have seen learners make significant academic progress when support targets the right level.

For example, one secondary-school student moved from a low pass in mock exams (practice exams taken before final national assessments) to the highest possible grade in his final exams after following a programme that reduced physical and organisational load and supported learning foundations.

Progress did not come from pushing harder. It came from making learning easier to access.

Dyspraxia is frequently approached through a physical or medical lens. Our focus is educational — because this is where children are most often misunderstood.

We look at how differences in planning, coordination, balance and body awareness affect learning and organisation in real classrooms and daily life. We pay attention to where energy and working memory are being used before learning even begins.

Dyspraxia is not only physical. It is often also visible through learning.

Yes. While coordination differences are often part of dyspraxia, planning, organisation and learning are frequently affected as well.

Dyspraxic learners often use energy and working memory to manage balance, planning and organisation before learning begins.

Learning letter formation relies on motor planning and muscle memory, which often develop more slowly in dyspraxic learners.

Maths depends on stable concepts of quantity, order and direction. When these are harder to hold consistently, understanding can feel fragile.

Support that reduces physical and organisational strain and strengthens learning foundations is often most effective.