Playtimes June 2014 - page 65

educational consultancy. “Watching
a child with DCD is like watching a
child who is slightly out of sync with
the environment around them,” she
says.
According to the Hong Kong
Government’s Child Assessment
Service, the peak age for diagnosis
is in the early primary school years.
However, Sharon is keen to spot DCD
earlier than classroom age. Therapists
believe children diagnosed earlier face
a better future.
Learning difficulties challenging
DCD children include slow
coordination, unclear speech, personal
space issues and an unwillingness to
interact with others and take part in
everyday activities. As a child grows
older and becomes more aware of
his challenges, especially in the teen
years, he might feel significantly self-
conscious or removed and have trouble
keeping up in school. And while some
children do outgrow DCD, many have
difficulties that continue throughout
life. Some studies have shown a
correlation between DCD and obesity
later in life.
While kids with DCD may be
slow to process, accept and deliver in
tasks and activities, such skills can be
learned and, with practice, improve.
And since practising skills helps
children overcome both the social and
physical challenges they might face,
specialists see early detection as vital.
Unfortunately, the highly competitive
nature of getting school places in
Hong Kong can hold parents back
from having their children assessed.
“Parents tend to think, ‘If we can just
get through kindergarten to primary,
that will be OK.’ Unfortunately, [by]
then we have missed a big window,”
says Sharon.
Seeing the signs
So, what should parents look for?
Keeping a reliable checklist of
milestones to hand helps, as does
providing an environment to practise
fine and gross motor skills and speech
skills. Getting children out from
behind a screen, be it a tablet or TV,
and into an environment where speech
and motor skills can be practised can
help the child while also allowing a
parent to monitor physical and social
activity.
Climbing, skipping and jumping
during playground play help hone
gross motor skills, while craft table
favourites like cutting, sticking,
painting and colouring stimulate
small motor ability. Construction
play, threading and lacing are other
great ways to practise fine motor skills,
and singing, rhyming and reading
aloud all encourage speech skills and
language acquisition. When a child
repeatedly shows a lack of interest in
Watching a child
with DCD is like
watching a child
who is slightly
out of sync with
the environment
around them.
June 2014
65
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