Famous people who have dyspraxia

there are some people in the public eye that have dyspraxia and sometimes talk about it in interviews and having someone to look up to who is similar to you can be incredibly supportive for people

to start with the dyspraxia foundations celebrity patron Jamie Lambert a singer from the band Collabro who won britains got talent in 2014 and jamie has spoken in public about how dyspraxia affects him and when he became the patron of the dyspraxia foundation he's mum wrote a blog on dyspraxia as a parent which you can see here https://yorkie007.wordpress.com/2015/06/28/pug-diaries-the-devil-is-in-the-detail-dumbing-down-dyspraxia/


florence welch is a singer known from the band florence and the machine and she has dyslexia as well as dyspraxia and has talked about it and in an article on understood.org she mentioned that dyspraxia has helped her with being in a creative industry.


david bailey is a well known photographer who also has dyspraxia although there arent really any articles of him talking about it there is a bit from his wife again suggesting the creativity side of dyspraxia being a positive thing that may help people so they dont focus on the negatives.


Cara delevigne model and actress has fairly recently spoken about having dyspraxia (it was mentioned in an article in vogue) and i think there is something about her when she does interviews that when you know she has dyspraxia you can notice.

perhaps the most well known dyspraxic is Daniel Radcliffe the actor who played harry potter and i can remember dyspraxia being mentioned around the 3rd film prisoner of azkaban i think on an extras disc where he mentions he always struggled with school and has difficulty with shoelaces i also remember an interview towards the end of the films in which he said that he is always breaking the wands. and he also gave some advice in an interview which was to not let dyspraxia hold you back it didnt him for him.

and finally albert einstein is thought to have had dyspraxia or possibly aspegers/autism and is perhaps why he excelled so much in one area of science.

Dyspraxia in the Media

this blog is about the coverage of dyspraxia in the media specifically traditional media such as newspaper, television and radio perhaps even some internet coverage aswell.
any media coverage of Dyspraxia or any other neuro/hidden disabilities in general seems to be quite rare although recently there has been an increase of media coverage of some hidden disabilities mostly the more well known ones such as autism and in the past i have seen some programmes on dyslexia and AD(H)D
this is not to say that dyspraxia does not fetaure in these forms of media media at all in fact recently (the last 2 or so years) there is some coverage as there has been a couple of newspaper artcles which i will link to at the bottom of this post and some features through radio and online comedy which you can see here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-39351356
unlike some other hidden conditions dyspraxia has as far as im aware never had a trelvision programme speccifically for increasing the understanding and awareness however dyspraxia has appeared or been a part of a couple of television programmes one of which is (young) childrens show tree fu tom that tries to encourage activity and improve motor skills whilst watching television you can read more about it in these two links below
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/treefutom/dyspraxia-foundation.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/children-with-dyspraxia
and something that perhaps more would have seen was lofty a character played by lee mead in casualty and now holby city (BBC shows) was that in an episode of casualty there is a mention that lofty may have dyspraxia however after that one scene in one episode it was never mentioned afterwards.
links to as many articles about or featuring dyspraxia as i can from the last few years.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/29/dyspraxia-serious-recognition

http://metro.co.uk/2017/03/10/what-is-dyspraxia-its-more-than-just-clumsiness-6496918

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/dyspraxia-is-more-than-just-clumsy-child-syndrome-it-can-cause-emotional-distress-and-anxiety-a7416081.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/health/this-is-how-a-dyspraxia-diagnosis-changed-my-life-a3359906.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/i-get-knocked-back-but-i-get-up-again-my-journey-with-dyspraxia-a7091426.html

Handwriting

handwriting or poor handwriting is probably one of the things that is most associated or visible in someone who has dyspraxia and is one of the things that most affected me in school.

i remember that around the time i was diagnosed with dyspraxia i used to see a specialist (occupational therapist i think) and there was a sort of writing test/activity that without any time constraints to write as neatly as possible and for me and many dyspraxics it can take a long time to write one sentence neatly can be physically painful however after we did this we were told that my handwriting would not improve from that point. and below is what my handwriting is currently like

(i may have mentioned in a previous blog that when i was in yr11 15/16 yrs old my english teacher tried to teach me how to write the letter e which makes up half of my name)
as far as i am aware all children are taught to write in the same way with the same pen/pencil grip etc.however some people do still tend to grip things in different way some will wrap their handnaround a pen some will hold with just their fingertips
however there are a lot of different styles, shapes and size pens out there that try to encourage help develop the usage of the 'correct' pen grip such as the yoropen which im pretty sure i have used in the past but they were not for me as they were a bit too narrow.there is also a variety of pens and some pencils made by the company stabilo which have an ergonomic grip built into them these are the pens i have probably used most although they are a bit chunky and cand raw attention from others even adults. perhaps also useful for dyspraxics are the frixion pens made by pilot which are erasable pens but prior to using pens you can get pencil that have foam grips on them, but you do not neccesarily need to have a 'specialist' pen there are basic pens out there that come in different shapes and sizes fatter, thinner or triangular pens could work just aswell if you like the feel and shape and you are comfortable using it that is what is mmost important that you are comfortable using whatever pens you use.

Gender/Sexes?

it is widely thought that dyspraxia is more likely to affect males more than females from a (older) dyspraxia foundation leaflet that of those diagnosed 80% are male however there are also lots of females out there with dyspraxia.
firstly even when comparing dyspraxia among genders that males tend to be diagnosed earlier than females although this is not always the case and this could have a large impact on the diagnosis rates among the genders as often the older you get it is likely that you will have developed effective coping mechanisms and there tends to be less of a need for diagnosis for many especially if outside of education as those coping starategies may work so well that you dont feel that need and have no reason for it and from what i can recall seeing is that many people who dont get diagnosed via parents/teachers at school age often find if they go onto it university life and its at that age those people get their diagnosis.
when you see research done via polls or you look on social madia platforms you are more likely to see more of a 50-50 split in the genders however this could be impacted by research that suggests females tend to be much more active/involved in social media.
it is quite easy to see why the thought that dyspraxia affects boys more than girls especially with the difference in age of diagnosis and this is because on average boys are much more likely to pursue and be pushed towards sports and physical activities than girls are, so there is potentially much more oppurtunity to identify aspects of dyspraxia.
is the huge difference in diagnnosis of dyspraxia between genders and widely thought belief representative? highly unlikely
that is a big question and is highly unlikely/ impossible to be answered definititively as you would need to test everyone. there could well be some difference but there is not really any reason for it to be so big.
back in 2015 there was a article from the dyspraxia foundation about this difference
 http://dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/dyspraxia-is-battle-sexes/

Everyday Life

everyday or day-to-day life as a dyspraxic person can sometimes be annoying, funny, frustrating, forgetful and possibly even dufficult and occasionally just normal/average.

you can often see around in leaflets or online that one of the more common things to come up is women and make-up and how something that most people consider a fairly easy and simple task a person with dyspraxia can find incredibly difficult, the same can be said about quite a lot of other daily tasks that are considered simple by most people yet many of these can actually require quite a lot of fine motor control. sometimes people can just forget to do a certain thing which can be quite common it certainly is for me for example sometimes i can forget to brush my teeth and i might not even think about it and i can get through the day and at a really random time like driving somewhere i then think oh i havent brushed my teeth yet today the same could be said for not having breakfast occasionally, alot of people have probably had similar situations sometimes when youre going out a realise that you have forgotten something.
also for alot of people with dyspraxia eating or using cutlery especially is something that can be difficult although there are different types of cutlery that you can buy made of differnet material or different shapes such as being ergonomic so they fit to the hand or encourage the 'correct' grip for me personally i dont find using cutlery hard but i know that when i use cutlery i use it quite diffferently to most others i know such as the dominant task i will always use my right hand so for cutting with the knife i will use my right hand and then will swap the fork to my right hand for eating and when i am cutting i tend to stab the item i am cutting with the fork then cut with the knife in my right hand however i do prefer to and find it easier to use cutlery that has flat handles and not rounded handles.
and then there is shaving although as a man who likes and often has a beard/ facial hair, i dont shave that often but when i first needed to start shaving my dad actually helped alot (did most of the shaving for me) however when i do shave now i mostly use and electric shaver/trimmer although i am never able to trim the beard to certain length when i try to so i just shave most/all off and using an electric shaver is easier than using a razor however i have found that you kind of get used to using a razor after time if you are careful although it can still take time as you are having to look in a mirror whilst doing some weird face contortionism and use a razor and make sure you dont miss any spots which i do as i only use my right (dominant) hand when shaving and making sure you dont apply too mush pressure.