written expression disability

Have you thought that he could have Attention Deficit Disorder? What you are stating in his behaviors, his lack of motivation, not staying on task to complete the TOWL and the suggested goals made by the school psychologist point to ADD-inattention or possibly depression. If you are having problems with his starting and finishing tasks, not knowing where to start, he can’t get organized, his room is a mess, he acts like he doesn’t pay attention, he can hyperfocus on things he likes but won’t perform very well on things that don’t hold his interest…etc…you may want to investigate ADD-Inattentive.

I have administered The TOWL. It has a section where the child is to look at a very detailed picture and they are to use their imagination and make up what they think the picture is about. On one version of the test the picture is a Caveman scene and the other version is one set in Space. A boy would have a field day with either of these pictures…and it sounds like your son zoned out during the test….These pictures are more challenging for girls to write about and the girl that I gave it to had severe language problems and she wrote pretty steadily for 10 minutes…and then said I am done and I told her you have the entire time see if you can add some more and she went back and wrote some more…

Does your son have speech and language services? What was the score on his processing speed on the WISC? Has he had testing on his expressive and receptive language by an SLP?

My son’s verbal comprehension score on the WISC-III was 114. The Perceptual Organization Index score was 90. His freedom from Distractibility Index was 96. The processing speed index was 77. As you can see, there are various scores to be considered. He is a happy kid. He has many friends and is very social. One item mentioned on the report “His overall speed of response related to hands-on activites and performance was less than average.” Other comments included ” He entered the evaluation willingly and readily interacted with the examiner.” They did a social emotional survey of 80 responses. Nothing in the report stated any problem in this area. He is receiving help from the Special Ed teacher in a inclusion setting. He does not receive any help from the Speech teacher. He did take the TOWL, the space picture. After the test, he said he was wondering how all the stuff got up in space. This was why he didn’t use all the minutes. This could be an excuse. I don’t know. The examiner mentioned that he might be the type of kid who does not want to make a mistake. We have thought about the ADD, inattentive. We used meds, but thought we try school with out them. That is why we went for private testing this summer. We wanted to check in on his work. He has not been on meds for 2 years.

Hi Mary,

Can’t speak for all the test scores and what they mean; it’s been years ago for us. On the other hand, both I and our son have problems with written expression when it comes to putting pen to paper. Typing has pretty much eliminated this issue for both of us.

I can’t write one word/sentance in cursive writing, I doubt our boy can either (19 and in JC). Anyway, just .02 worth of info, that’s all.

Andy

If your son got worse with his writing after the test, your explanation would make sense. If though his writing skills basically remained the same as they were before the test, we can’t blame the test and its diagnosis.

It doesn’t sound like learned helplessness to me and we usually don’t use that term with those who have diagnosed learning differences. Your son hasn’t learned to be helpless - he has a learning difference. He hasn’t learned how to write as have many of his peers because of that difference.

It’s very hard to put your “all” into a task that’s hard for you particularly for adolescents. And even if he does put his all, he will in the greatest of liklihood still manifest a difference in his writing.

If you’re sitting with your son and proofreading, the process of homework may also have become laborious for him and that may be a reason he’s not putting his all into it. Consider linking him up with an occupational therapist who may be able to help with his writing and a homework tutor who’ll know from experience when to push and when not to.

Kids with learning differences are doubly burdened in school. They have to learn and do what everyone else is and they have to learn to contend with their learning difference. All the while usually getting poorer grades than other kids even though by definition they’re doing double the work.

Nothing will put a child with a learning difference in writing off more than forcing them to write in a journal every day.

he should be able to write really well…..he has the knowledge in regards to vocabulary but he can’t pull what he knows and put it down on paper….and the reason why….I strongly suspect… ADD…

A low processing speed like your son’s is indicative of ADD-Inattentive…My daughter had a 122 processing speed in 2nd grade by 6th grade her processing speed had dropped in the low 80’s…When I asked the Psychologist why it had dropped so low…. she just brushed me off and said the same thing, she probably was thinking too hard about something and not wanting to mess up…but……..When the Pediatric specialist at the University…who researches ADD looked at the steady decline in her processing speeds over the years… he said that this was highly indicative of ADD-Inattentive. He did more testing and he decided that we should try meds…Before we did meds her writing on the WISC was below 1st grade and within one year with meds her writing was about 5th grade level…she was in 6th grade at the time….. she has really made a dramatic turn around….with meds and behavior modification…

I am strongly suggesting that you look further into ADD…because all you have shared sounds so familiar..I learned the hard way…It took me 3 years of not listening to teachers about her inattentive behaviors…I always thought it was CAPD because she is hearing impaired but underlying it all was ADD. She is now in 7th grade mainstreamed in all her classes except for English…meds and lots of speech therapy and LMB have made this possible.

Well, surely with reasonably strong verbal stuff he should not have a hard time with ideas and vocabulary. However,his low processing speed indicates some specific issues with processing abstract symbols fluently- and this is likely the root of the written language disability. It means that under the best of circumstances, writing will be slow- and not an activity he would choose to do independantly:). I would not be at all surprised to find that he reads slowly also- and uses good vocabulary to support his comprehension. Whether he has translated this difficulty- which is quite real-into a performance issue is another question. It might- but you would have them in a lot of other places too and I am not hearing more than normal sorts of adolescent boy garbage- clean room independantly- hah. This person obviously doesn’t have boys in their house;)

Whether this performance indicates ADD Innattentive or not is another question- and one that I am not qualified to address. It does seem as if there needs to be a pattern in a series of evaluations however- not just one low score. However, I also have some questions about an examiner that would allow a child to sit for nine minutes without some form of comment- even an innocuous one about time passing- my favorite is “Still thinking?”. An ADD kiddo would likely go “whoops” and get started, where a child who was passively refusing would continue to refuse. You have some history of ADD- so you might want to investigate it a little more.

Robin

Pattim,
I find it outrageous that you would tell a parent that you suspect ADD based on the info she has shared. Please take the time to learn what Dysgraphia is about and stop making an online diagnosis. This parent needs help and ideas not one more thing to now worry about !

Mary,
I think your email is so so true for many folks. Where does the line get drawn? Go with your gut feeling and bear into mind typically a person with this disability works up so much energy just when writing their is often very little left for content etc., that is where a keyboard can be a big help. Good luck. Read anything you can written by Renee Richards, her work is worth reading and check out Mel Levine.

I have an 8th grader who is classified with a written expression disability though he has come a long way.

Some coments: My son in the 4th and 5th grade took a lot of time getting started on his writing. He seemed to have the need to think the whole thing out before he pur anything on the paper. Since the physical act of writing was hard for him, I’m sure he wanted to get it right the first time. When he dictated to me he went so fast I could not keep up with him. When my son took the TOWL-3 in 6th grade he had a hard time coming up with anything to write about the caveman picture and the coments by the tester were like the coments of your son’s tester.

My son like many LD kids has problems with attention to detail. Use of the computer for writing and a teacher who taught grammar and sentence structure made the world of difference. Acknowledge your son’s area of difficulty and try to find things that make the process easier. Reginia Richards has some good books on dysgraphia.

Helen

Interesting group of messages. YOur son probably can’t get started on writing because that is part of what comes with the dysgraphia. Our daughter (age 11, who is also NLD with executive function disorder, which greatly affects her ability to organize her thinking) can dictate it all, but the combination of getting the creative idea out of her head and onto paper, combined with motor skills that slow handwriting — well, you get the picture. Computer can help some. But you can’t expect a kid with dysgraphia to just sit down and write like other kids - it’s very very very difficult. A writing tutor has helped my daughter - gives her the time and space to work on it. Used to be the tutor would start writing while my daughter talked, then sometimes my daughter would grab the pencil and take over once the juices got flowing. But even “getting the juices flowing” is very difficult — there’s almost like a blockage from the creative idea piece through the getting it on paper piece.

By contrast, my younger daughter (age 8.5) has been writing since she could pick up a pencil, writes to unwind, to relax, etc. I have to keep her stocked in journals. She absolutely loves to write.

We’ve yet to try some of the software like Inspiration. Recommend you read all the good stuff on dysgraphia on this site, buy Regina’s book(can’t remember author’s last name), give it to your son’s teachers, educate them etc.

If in addition to dysgraphia there are other issues interfering (like ADD, executive function, working memory, etc.) these need there own assessment/diagnosis and then incorporate those findings into the whole intervention for writing.

Hope that helps. I’ve found the dysgraphia very tricky to understand, much less to explain to the teacher! I doubt it’s all about laziness and performance.

My Dad, God rest his soul, wrote in a journal daily from the time he was 11 yrs. old. I have all of them and they not only have given me insight in to life when he was growing up but I really know so much more about him than he could have told me.

They are full of struggles, learning, humor, the teenage stuff really is funny because in reality teen yrs. remain the same.

If you could get your son to do a daily short journal later in life it will bring pleasure to him and others.

I think you are being unfair. Pattim just shared what, in her experience, was a major factor in her daughter’s inability to write. She thought her daughter and the poster’s child had similarities and that the poster ought to consider this possibility.

I don’t understand why you think this is not helpful. From what I understand, dysgraphia is dealt with mostly by accomodations; there is little effective remediation. If ADD was partly or even mostly the cause of what Mary observes in her son, then I would think there would be more hope of overcoming the problem. Realize that the same symptoms can have different causes.

Personally, I have had a number of “on line diagnoses” with my son, which I have followed up, of course, with professional evaluationsdiagnoses. The parents have been right on the money.

Beth

Thanks, to everyone for all the information. I have learned so much from the comments. We are in our second week of school. He has put less than 60 minutes into his homework each night. It might be early in the year. My son has the content in his writing. How he expresses the content is where the problem lies. Ex. he uses similar looking words in his writng. He confuses one or two letters in a word. He is good with comprehending and understands all information. His speed for reading I suspect is slower than the norm. It has not been an issue yet. Achievement test scores for comprehension have been in the area of 60%ile. The thing I sense the most from my son is the lack of flow in his writing. He is like a car that keeps on backfiring. Sometimes he says he can do better if he creates a beat in his head while he writes. He is a good kid in so many ways. He has a sense of humor, too. All I can do is keep positive. But I must tell you the middle school teachers have been wonderful. It seems like the teachers will accomodate more in middle school than in elementary. (this is from my experience only and may not be true of all elementary teachers…) I will look into the books by Renee Richards. The one comment about excutive function was one I would like to know more about. That post seem to match my son’s problems. Everyone had something of value for me to ponder.

Wow! I can’t believe all that I just read. My son was tested last year due to a writing deficiency. His verbal skills with WISC scored above average, but his written skills were desperately low. The school has been pushing me towards ADD, but I’ve felt all along that his inatentiveness is due to his LD. (Dysgraphia) We had an appointment with a pediactric nuerologist last May, and he didn’t feel he was ADD. We now have an appointment this Friday with an Audiologist for processing. This was recommened by the Nuerologist. The school was unhappy with the Neurologist findings. I think they thought he would be a shoe in for meds. We are very reluctant to try meds.

Just wanted to say how interesting your point of view was.

Thanks,
Laura

Not many of us like to do things we find hard. The psychologist Alfred Adler spent a lot of time in his work explaining how hard we work at protecting our egos. In summary, he said, if it makes us feel badly about ourselves, we avoid it. (I know, I do.)

But, I think your instinct is right. Better than our natural tendency is the learned value that we can overcome what we find hard. The trick with a child is to get him to adopt the value. Said another way, how do you let a child know that it’s worth overcoming something?

Carol