occupational therapy

At my school, a private school, the general feeling by the OT’s is that the window of opportunity for really making a difference remediating handwriting is mostly gone by the age of 11. We prefer to have a child use an Alphasmart or computer. Many of the kids have their own laptops. They learn keyboarding skills much younger than do their peers. It sure is nice for them to finally be ahead of their classmates when it comes to something. By high school, and sometimes even middle school, teachers are encouraging all their students to use the computer for their papers anyhow.

Put a request in in writing for an OT evaluation by the school district they are obligated to consider the request. Read below:

http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/writing/ot_questions.html

“Occupational therapy (OT) is a related service under Part B of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and is provided to help a student with a disability to benefit from special education. As such, OT is a supportive service. If your child has a disability, as defined by IDEA, and needs special education and related services to meet unique learning needs, then he/she might be eligible for OT services. Your child must be eligible for special education before being considered for OT services in the schools under IDEA. Eligibility for special education does not mean automatic eligibility for related services, including OT. The final determination is made by the multidisciplinary team in concert with the OT evaluation.”

while the window may be closing on making a child a truly fluent writer with beautiful- or at least legible- handwriting, there is a signficant opportunity to correct some of the errors of formation that make students writing so inefficient and hard to read. I have seen kids in my own tutoring become far more capable with their handwriting at this age and older- simply because they wanted to- they were sick of having writing that they much less anyone else couldn’t read. They would never be as fast as the “average” bear- but they were much more peased with the way their product looked and that was huge. A lot depends on how willing they are to participate in the process. It is a truism that we often don’t attend to- you can provide the most wonderful remediation and support in the world- perfectly tailred to a child and if they won’t partake… like the horse and the water. At 11, many of them WANT better writing…and they are rational enough to work through some of how hard it might be.

Robin

Statistically speaking, most 11 year olds will not benefit greatly from handwriting remediation. Of course, that doesn’t mean your child wouldn’t. If he has never had any previous handwriting therapy, it might be worth a try, so long as it you recognize that there are no guarantees. However, handwriting problems are among the least remediable of the LDs and there are many different reasons for such difficulties, some of which respond better to therapy than others. At age 11, I would be more concerned about the substance of what he writes. When he writes or types his work, does it accurately convey what he knows and can express verbally? Is he able to spell and to employ correct sentence structure? Does he know how to write in paragraphs? Can he make a point and provide support for it? Given his age, these things would concern me more than how his writing looks. The great thing is that it is NOT too late to deal with any substantive problems with his written expression. There are plenty of people walking around with terrible, unreadable handwriting and doing just fine. Its the folks who can’t express their ideas via the written word who face the greater problems. JMHO.

Andrea

But if your audience can not read what is written there is a problem. Typing does not take care of everything. Written responses are still needed on school worksheets and forms throughout life. A person who can’t write so it is readable
is at a disadvantage. The writing does not have to be great just readable.

My son had OT in 2nd-3rd. His writing became readable. Now at 13 it is has become unreadable and we have to readdress this issue. I think he has forgotten how to forms some of the letters.

Helen

Yes my son is just starting to have OT actually tomorrow is his first session in school.He is 9 and in 3rd grade and has trouble rembering how to form letters and his handwriting is very messy and he does nt space words.He does have other sensory issues as well.

For my son moving to cursive produced better results. He did not have the reversal problem that he had with printing. Each child is different. At this age what I did was get an alphabeth strip with all the letters and placed it on his desk at the top in both the classroom and resource room so he had the model right in front of him. They sell these stripes in a roll at teacher supply stores. There is usually enough for the whole class so the child doesn’t feel different.

I hope your son has success with the OT.

Helen

I agree. The child’s desire is paramount.

But, my 12-year-old, you-have-to-drag-him-most-of-the-way son was significantly helped by one-on-one work with his tutor, who helped him attend to the formation of letters and practice cursive writing until he had something legible by other people. I had to keep encouraging him to use cursive, but it has helped, so he now has a useful skill.

In addition, he uses an AlphaSmart and, over vacations, we’ll have him work with some computer programs to help him master keyboarding. He’ll use the computer for work encompassing many pages. That is, handwriting is now possible for him, but it takes effort. Having the keyboarding skill too will give him the option which skill to use.

Good luck!

Carol

My son even reverses cursive letters He does have a alphabet strip on his desk in the resouce room.he has a slant board on hi desk in his classroom and it has the alphabet too .He relies on these a great deal from what his teacher says.My son does not getting all the help he does and is very restricted to any help until he knows the personhelping him ffor some time a few months.The only help he likes now is speech and he has had the same therapist for 5 years now.He does not like change.

I don’t disagree that there is still a need for handwriting. My point is simply that the substance of what is written is much more important than the form in which it is presented. Often, that point is missed, especially in elementary school, where kids do more handwriting than they will ever do again in their entire lives. For some, maybe even most kids with dysgraphia, even if you can improve the neatness and legibility of their handwriting, it will never be the medium that best allows them to show what they know. My 11 year old has had occupational therapy since age 4 and his handwriting is now readable, though not great. He can write fairly automatically with a pencil, but what gets down on the page is never as good as what he can communicate when he types. Frankly, the best thing we did for my son was to make sure that, along with OT for handwriting, he also received typing instruction, beginning in first grade. We also use form scanning software available that allows my son, when necessary, to scan and complete forms on a computer rather than by hand. In addition, we have taken continuous steps over a number of years to help my son learn how to communicate his thoughts through the written word. These kinds of measures do not take care of everything, but they do take care of the most important things.

Andrea

I have been looking for a good program to do just what you describe. What do you recommend and how much does it cost?
My daughter is also disgraphic and all those worksheet papers are so frustrating!!!!!

We use a shareware program called form pilot. I think it costs $25 to get the registered version, but there are no time limits on using the unregistered version. You can download it at http://www.colorpilot.com/formpilot.html#2
We use it a home and my son’s teachers also use it for him at school. It is easy to use and works well.
Andrea

I think that worksheets can be scanned into an AlphaSmart and a child can type in the answers on that. Schools will usually provide an AlphaSmart if a child is diagnosed dysgraphic.

Mary

Dear Andrea,

I just posted a message about my 5-year old child (who just started primary school). Then, I tried to read through past discussions and found your note about your son. I would be most grateful if you could share with me your son’s experiences. (My daughter who seems to be gifted but is troubled by writing problems.) What is an OT? How does he/she help with writing? If an OT is not available in the area, what could one do to make sure that the child does not suffer in terms of self-esteem and academic performance as a result of her writing problems? Is there books that talk about writing problems, or computer software that helps writing issues. My daughter’s teacher and my husband do think that she will get better, but I am so afraid that delayed intervention means more to catch up. Does the writing also affect spelling? Thanks.

Helan