“Dyspraxia is a neurological disorder that results in life-long impaired motor, memory, judgment, processing, and other cognitive skills. Each dyspraxic person has different abilities and weaknesses as dyspraxia often comes with a variety of comorbidities. The most common of these is Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), a motor-planning-based disorder that impacts fine and gross motor development.”
—Dyspraxia Foundation USA
My knowledge of dyspraxia began when my pre-school daughter started exhibiting difficulties with “simple” activities that her peers found easy: dressing, jumping, catching a ball, making eye contact, keeping track of time. After a number of frustrating years, she was finally diagnosed with dyspraxia. As she’s grown up, she’s developed into a confident, opinionated, academically gifted young woman—but not without overcoming challenges along the way, and continuing to overcome those challenges now she’s at university.
As a condition, the way dyspraxia presents is as unique as the individuals who have it. No one depiction of a character with dyspraxia will represent everyone’s experience of the condition. In writing Theo, I’ve based his experience of dyspraxia on my daughter’s, and have borrowed (with her permission) a number of real-life incidents—one of which forms the bones of Theo and Luca’s meet-cute. My daughter has kindly read Between the Lines, and suggested a couple of changes in how I present Theo. Any remaining missteps or omissions are all my own.
Despite the fact that one in ten people have some level of dyspraxia, it is not a widely understood condition. In writing this book, I hope I’ve shed some light on it, as well as fulfilled the ambition of all romance authors—to demonstrate that happy-ever-afters are for everyone.
If you’d like to find out more about dyspraxia there’s lots of useful information on the Dyspraxia Foundation websites www.dyspraxiausa.org and www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk.