My son is 7 years old and will be entering the second grade this fall. For the past three years he has been receiving OT for a fine motor skill delay. His handwriting is terrible. At the end of this school year he had a complete psycholigical and educational assessment to determine the need to continue an OT IEP. His testing showed he is of above average intelligence and the only areas of deficiency is in handwriting. What has alarmed me is that both testers came to the conclusion that my son’s behavior was the cause of his problem. I am not naive. But even the testers wrote that the behavior issue arose when he was frustrated in a writing task. The school’s evaluation concluded that he is no longer eligile for services, yet they did make some recommendations for writing assignments next year. My concern is that we got bullied out. I believe that my son may be dysgraphic and should have had accommadations set for him next year. Any suggestions or ideas would be helpful. Thank you.
Re: ?dysgraphia
I recently posted an aritcle about the various types of difficulties children experience that affect handwriting. It really explaned specific difficulties such as Leah touched on including praxis issues, fine motor, visual perception issues all or one of which could be causing the handwriting difficulties.
You need to understand what is causing your child’s specific difficulties. I know with my son it is related to praxis and visual perception. We are doing some specific interventions to deal with these difficulties.
Search the parenting a child with LD board using the words Graphomotor skills, it should come up. I don’t know why I was able to cut and paste it that one time but can’t cut and paste it now.
Let me know if you don’t find it and I will email it to you.
My son also did well with Sensory integration OT and Handwriting without tears. Also check out www.callirobics.com it is a program that works on form drawings which is similar to what my son’s OT did. She did other things as well including walking the forms he was having difficulty with but I think if you can’t afford an OT callirobics is a place to start along with Handwriting without tears which can also be purchased at www.handwritingwithouttears.com. Both programs are relatively inexpensive.
One other thing, I had to insist that my child recieve OT from the school. I was persistant but nice and they gave me what I wanted. I think they gave it to me just to shut me up because I kept calling and calling.
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That really is the most effective method in dealing with the schools. Pleasant persistance.
You can really drive them nuts and remain the good guy. Who me. I just thought you hadn’t received my previous 20 messages. LOL
Re: ?dysgraphia
Thank you for you help and suggestions. I looked at the Handwriting Without Tears and did place an order. I just read an interesting article called the “Blame Game”. icsi.net/~stlevine/fault.htm Basically it said that appox 90% of the time an evaluation that the school has done shows that the problem lies within the child and not with the disability or the manner of instruction for these kids with an LD. I did call the school to have a meeting before school starts to make sure all accomodations are inplace.
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You crack me up ball…I enjoy your posts! I am an optomistic person and it saddens me..but I agree with you quite a bit : )
Re: ?dysgraphia
My daughter has been called lazy and careless, but I think she is dysgraphic. The school tested her and said she does NOT qualify for OT. I got her qualified for special ed. in the back door. They do have spelling and writing goals on her IEP. Her biggest difficulties are with written expression (handwriting and getting her thoughts on paper) and spelling. She also has difficulty with punctuation. I understand that these are the areas of difficulty for most dysgraphics. I don’t get it.
Good luck with the school. I know how difficult they can be to deal with!
Margo
Re: ?dysgraphia
I have found with my daughter and a friend of her’s that her dysgraphia was caused by her eyesight. With her friend’s case it was not discovered until I suggested that he be taken to a pediatric optometrist. He may have “normal” vision as far as seeing distance or close up, but his perceptive vision may be a problem. The eyes are made to be used together. If they do not work together, most times it comes out as reading or writing difficulties. Here is a quick assessment to see if a trip to the eye doctor is necessary: Take a pencil or some object your child likes to look at. Have him follow it with his eyes slowly; left then right, up then down, make a circle. Look at his eyes as you are doing this. Do they follow together or is one eye doing something else? Does he blink as you are doing this? Does he give up after a few seconds or follow along easily? The average child should be able to do this for about a minute or two with no problems.
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You just described why I was in LD in the late 70’s as an elementary school student… 30 minutes each day in the LD resource room- looking back, I think it would’ve been better if I’d have been left in an all day LD class room,like I was my first grade year…Just my opinion, though..(Well save for me having trouble with the other hands on stuff, too..) the dysgraphia, and fine motor skills problems- that was me..but also I had trouble with math too-I never could weed out or figure out what they wanted me to get out of a word/story problem,either…as well as problems with long multipulcation,long division,decimals, and later algebra…But, I did like doing the equations and proportions/ratios- those were like big totally cool puzzles! LOL…guess, I was one messed up, shot out, wierd kid USD 259 didn’t have the first clue what to do with! LOL…
Nita
I find it to be a real stretch that behavior is affecting handwriting. That’s a new one.
My daughter, age 9, has dysgraphia, along with LD. Her handwriting was so bad in 2nd grade that it was practically illegible. It was all over the page, above and below the line and with very irregular spacing. She currently receives 30 min /wkly of OT through the school system; however, what really helped her was sensory integration OT and the handwriting without tears program. She now writes as good or better (when she’s trying) as any other child in her class. Has your son been tested for visual processing problems? Does he have an odd pencil grip? Can he copy from the board and/or a book? Oftentimes fine motor problems plus visual processing problems = dysgraphia.
What about an AlphaSmart and keyboarding for him? If his handwriting is that bad he should be receiving some kind of accommodations. What about a 504 in lieu of an IEP? Request an assistive technology evaluation through your school guidance counselor. My daughter started on an Alphasmart at the beginning of 3rd grade and now uses a computer with software specialized for LD. If your son has no problems other than the writing, then the AlphaSmart should be a good fit.