Dysgraphia

My son was diagnosed last year with dysgraphia. He too was in 3rd grade. The testing showed a large deficite in his writing capabilities. I have been told that dysgraphia is often accompanied by dyslexia. (Tyler only has dysgraphia) We included in our IEP, keyboarding, remediation writing, one on one, hand exercises, as he has a poor pencil grip. We also added use of a sribe. I have found that my son has a difficult time formulating the idea, and then getting out on paper. If I am his scribe, he has volumes of information. His spelling is okay while being tested, but when used in context, it becomes pheonetic (sp?)

He’s very aware of his writing incomparison to other children. I have found that the scribe technique allows him to see how much he really knows. He’s always very excited because when he looks at his own work, it’s very minimal.
We still encourage writing, but I try not to overdo it as it’s so very frustrating for him. There’s a book available ot the Retcenter press called “Eli, the boy who hated to write”. I think my son really identified with it.

Good luck, try not to get frustrated. I’ve found it’s hard to not be critical of the neatness although I’m much better now that I understand the LD more.

Take Care,
Laura

My son was diagnosed last year with dysgraphia. He too was in 3rd grade. The testing showed a large deficite in his writing capabilities. I have been told that dysgraphia is often accompanied by dyslexia. (Tyler only has dysgraphia) We included in our IEP, keyboarding, remediation writing, one on one, hand exercises, as he has a poor pencil grip. We also added use of a sribe. I have found that my son has a difficult time formulating the idea, and then getting out on paper. If I am his scribe, he has volumes of information. His spelling is okay while being tested, but when used in context, it becomes pheonetic (sp?)

He’s very aware of his writing incomparison to other children. I have found that the scribe technique allows him to see how much he really knows. He’s always very excited because when he looks at his own work, it’s very minimal.
We still encourage writing, but I try not to overdo it as it’s so very frustrating for him. There’s a book available ot the Retcenter press called “Eli, the boy who hated to write”. I think my son really identified with it.

Good luck, try not to get frustrated. I’ve found it’s hard to not be critical of the neatness although I’m much better now that I understand the LD more.

Take Care,
Laura

I have two boys,both have dysgraphia. They are 11 and 12 years old. ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY needs to be in the mixture. It was the very best thing to happen to my guys. It level the playing field,they are able to type as fast as the class can write,it took time to learn,but was worth it. My guys are also in OT,occupational therapy.This could also be another thought. I hope this helped.

Reading almost always improves “leaps and bounds” ahead of spelling and writing. Writing is *incredibly* complex. Think about the struggles professional writers have getting words right!

Click on “LD In Depth” and then on “writing” for some quick articles on dysgraphia (yea, the Susan Jones one is mine). As with reading, the trick is to not let writing problems slow down developing language skills and get in the way of other learning — so he should be learning to organize thoughts, etc. using whatever shortcuts make that possible — but not to give up on learning those skills at his pace, either. And… sometimes you just don’t have time to do *everything* and still be a kid!

I just read a great book, “Learning Outside the Lines,” by two Ivy League college students, Mooney and Cole. The book is filled with tips for students dealing with dyslexia, dysgraphia and ADHD. It is geared to figuring out how to be successful at college, but I found the writing section to have excellent tips for younger dysgraphic students. The first section about how it felt in those early grades is a good reminder to all of us. It’s an easy, fun read and I recommend it highly.

My son has always struggled with writing and, when possible, chooses to avoid it altogether. He just started 4th grade this week. Starting tomorrow he will spend 2 hours each morning working on writing and language skills at an LD annex which is part of our school. I feel so fortunate to have this wonderful place and hope it does the trick. We’ve had OT, lots of testing, plenty of tutoring, most of which did little to help his writing. Verbally he is amazing; on oral reports he shines, but most work is written, and his is often indecipherable or as short as possible. Our school really believes in cursive at a young age, which initially seemed easier for him, but not for long. His LD teacher will use Orton-Gillingham method, which I am just learning about, but it seems to go back to basics with these kids who never GOT the basics down. My son reads quite well, but the writing is a major stumbling block and has definitely pulled down his confidence to a dangerous level. This will be a pivotal year. By the way, are there any GIRLS out there with dysgraphia? Let’s keep in touch about all this.

My 12-year-old son suffers dysgraphia. He would not write anything of any kind at home, including homework. We installed a program on our computer — Point & Speak by Dragon Systems. He got it started by speaking into its microphone, reading a printed text, for about two hours total (not all at once). The program “learned” the sound of his voice. Then he was able to dictate his compositions, letters, etc. With the spell-check feature and grammar checker engaged, he has what he needs to complete written work on his own.

We decided to use this to wean him away from using me as his scribe. I wanted him to be able to deal with the whole process of getting ideas down on paper — from thinking them, to organizing them, to seeing them in writing, to editing them. It has helped him, and I think will be very useful when he has fluency using it.

The company: www.dragonsys.com or www.naturalspeech.com.

Good luck! Carol

I’m curious to read about the orton-gillingham program. Like your son, mine is very rich in vocabulary, above and beyond his age level, but when it comes to putting thoughts on paper…..well you know what happens. Might as well be mute.

School starts for us the Tuesday after Labor day. We had an IEP designed last March, I’ve learned alot since then.

Where can I find more info.on the Orton-Gillingham program? I’m going to look online after I finish, but if you have some material that I can order, I would appreciate the information.

Thanks,
Laura

Lin,
My daughter is also entering 4th grade and has dysgraphia. At least, I think she does. The school says not enough discrepency.
So we’re going the independent assessment route. She doesn’t know yet that there are more tests.

I’d like to keep in touch - let each other know what works, what doesn’t. I envy you that the school isn’t fighting you. My daughter’s school is still saying.”Try harder.” She’s already spending 90 minutes a night on writing homework that the rest of her class does in 30 minutes. She’s forgotten what recess is. But she has to Try Harder. I feel like I’m talking to a wall at her school. Does your son have reading problems? Her school never heard of a child having dysgraphia without dyslexia? Is she the only one? Mandy

Mandy, is your daughter’s school punishing her for her poorly-written schoolwork by keeping her in during recess? Your remark that she’s forgotten what recess is makes me wonder. It sounds as if they think she’s lazy.

Yours truly,
Kathy G.

mandy wrote:
>
> Lin,
> My daughter is also entering 4th grade and has dysgraphia.
> At least, I think she does. The school says not enough
> discrepency.
> So we’re going the independent assessment route. She doesn’t
> know yet that there are more tests.
>
> I’d like to keep in touch - let each other know what works,
> what doesn’t. I envy you that the school isn’t fighting
> you. My daughter’s school is still saying.”Try harder.”
> She’s already spending 90 minutes a night on writing homework
> that the rest of her class does in 30 minutes. She’s
> forgotten what recess is. But she has to Try Harder. I feel
> like I’m talking to a wall at her school. Does your son have
> reading problems? Her school never heard of a child having
> dysgraphia without dyslexia? Is she the only
> one? Mandy

Look into Project Read which specifically deals with writing issues (it is an Orton Gillingham program). Also anything by Renee Richards.

my son has dysgraphia with out dyslexia. I’ve heard it’s very uncommon, but it happens. Good luck with your private assessments. I’ve often felt like turning in that direction. The wheels turn so slowly when you’re dealing with the school. (my son turns 9 in sept and will be in 4th grade)

Take Care,
Laura

http://www.resourceroom.net/OGLists/MSSL.asp is something I wrote up for a homeschooling magazine — a summary and reflections about multisensory structured language programs (“multisensory” and “automaticity” are the favorite words of OG teachers :))

http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/reading/mssl_methods.html also has a summary and describes some of the OG programs.

LIke anything else, who’s trying to use the methods matters an awful lot (especially for LD/ADHD kids, who need a teacher that “matches” their personalities more than other kids, I think). And for many people trained in current “educational practices” in the universities, it is lumped under “drill and kill” — so it can be very hard to get it done at all, much less done right, in public schools. Often you’re better off investing in a tutor and taking the kid out of school an hour early :)

No. Although her work is a mess, she’s being kept in because she can’t finish the assignments on time. She has trouble organizing her thoughts and can not seem to see her spelling and grammar mistakes. It takes her twice as long to do half as much.
I say I’m going the route of independent assessment, but I don’t know what tests to have done. I keep reading and looking for answers. Good Luck to all. Mandy

Mandy,

Your independent assesser will know what tests to administer. What test did the school give her and what was her writing score? Does she have an IEP yet? Tyler missed some recesses, but it wasn’t all the time. I would be as concerned as you are. If you have and IEP, I would consider getting an advocate if they’re not hearing you. It’s so easy to crush the self esteem.
As for us, we are going to a auditory processing specialist to see if they can help. The school seems to think he’s ADD but I don’t believe so. They sent us to a pediatric neurologist and he didn’t think so either.

It’s difficult to work with the school, you can’t say too much or you’re adversarial but you have to do what they say, or you’re blocking the road to learning. I hope this year is better for us.

Take care,
Laura

Laura,

Let us know how the auditory processing test goes. I hope this year goes better for you. I feel better knowing there are other moms going through the same thing. Until this week, I didn’t know anyone whose child was dysgraphic. Good luck this year.

Carol,
Do you know how powerful a computer you need to run voice recognition. I heard you need state of the art Pentium 4 type machine. Do you know?

mandy-
imay not no much about this disorder but what i learned from other teacher friends is this it’s off beat a little but what the heck wanted to tell you about it anyway. if they are taking recess away or other time like art for instance away that is, legally in our state it’s not allowed although they do it any way in my daughters school not all the teachers mind you but some do. thank goodness this years teacher isn’t one of them but anyway it something to know. i read somewhere that children need that time to burn off energy built up while they had to sit in a situation for long periods of time. ex. 2 hours of schoolwork in the morning at school. they need to get up and move and recess gives them that.well just wanted to let you know
alicef

Alice, that is awsome info. I never thought about recess being mandated. Thanks.