Auto correct on Pages - very frustrating?

When I am writing on an iPad OS 17.2 the auto correct really slows me down and this is a recent problem.

If it corrects a word, it highlights it and should I have the temerity to go back and add a punctuation mark it swiftly deletes it, because there is no way of removing the highlight. Even accepting the change and moving on does help because if I return to add to the word to add punctuation it is automatically highlighted. Once selected always selected it appears! The only solution I have found is to type in the correctly spelt word, which is time consuming.

Is this driving anyone else mad?

Is there a way of fixing this, even if I have to turn off auto correct, which I would rather not do?

I can see no way on an iPad to change my Pages preferences,