A case study of how daily physical activity initiatives of occupational therapy were used to help physical movements for a child with dyspraxia

Background: Occupational therapy within the UK is used within schools to help develop children’s: fine motor; visual-perceptual; cognitive; and sensory-processing deficits as found in children with dyspraxia. The case study focuses on ‘Sue’ an 11 year old with dyspraxia, she presented with poor coordination, lack of focus and poor organisation skills. Within this paper, two daily physical activity interventions will be focused on: ‘resisted crawl’ and the ‘cat’. These are activities that are to help with difficulties linked to symmetric tonic neck reflex, and cause tension in the body when sitting on a chair or on the floor with arms and legs bent. It affects hand and eye coordination and causes problems with refocusing from far to near distance. Methods: The physical activity interventions were completed by a trained member of staff on a daily basis with ‘Sue’. Structured observations focusing biomechanically on the skills involved within the physical activities were completed. Also conversations with ‘Sue’ were recorded and semi-structured observations that took place once a week during (Friday) lunchtime to see how ‘Sue’ was applying her daily physical activities to a play context. Results and Conclusion: The data will show the progression of the successful as well as the unsuccessful parts of the physical activities throughout the 3 terms. It was found that when the interventions were completed on a daily basis ‘Sue’ was able to develop her coordination, by the end of the third term only the head and in particular the eyes were the unsuccessful part of the resisted crawl whilst the legs were the unsuccessful part of the cat, all other parts of the body were now being consistently successfully completed on a daily basis. The breaks for holidays impacted on ‘Sue’s’ movements and school have since recommended and developed a holiday plan to keep the progression of movements for ‘Sue’.