Hi, I just found about this thing called dsygraphia, I could not find any books about it at the library. I was wondering how a doctor could tell if your child has it, my daugther is 9 and seems to fit it to a tee, she has been struggling for 5 years now with writng, drawing and coloring, I did take her to her doctor when she was 6 because her teacher thought she had a fine motor problem but I did not agree at the time since she was just learning to print, I just thought she had bad handwriting and the doctor could not fine anything wrong with her motor skills. What can be done to deal with it, she gets A’s and B’s but her work is hard to read sometimes and sometimes she does not finish her written work in time, some teachers do not seem very understanding when your child has a problem.
Thanks, Carol
dysgraphia
There are some books on dysgraphia. Why Johnny Can’t Write is a good one and there’s one called simply “Dysgraphia”. Do a search at www.amazon.com for either or both of those books.
I’d suggest having your daughter evaluated by an occupational therapist. Fine motor therapy might help her but an educational psychologist should also do an evaluation as you might want to get an IEP in place for her.
Teachers are too often not understanding as you say. My own son has dysgraphia and I allowed him to dictate his homework to me and I typed as he spoke. Some dysgraphic children are helped by word processing on the computer themselves and you might try to encourage your daughter to give it a try.
Post on the Parenting an LD child bulletin board to get the greatest response to your very good question.
Good luck with this.
Audiblox
Audiblox is an interesting idea. People seem to really like it or really dislike it.
What was your child’s/student’s age and how long did you do it? How many minutes per day? Did you use the standard edition or upgrade to custom?
The program itself (at least the standard program) is pretty cheap so the only real concern is the opportunity costs involved.
ME
Re: dsygraphia
Might also check out a program: “Handwriting without Tears”. It is a really nice reasonably priced program that teaches some visual spatial awareness along with the handwriting (simplified manuscript and cursive).
www.hwtears.com
—des
Hi Carol.
My 10 year old was dx’ed with dsygraphic via the school when they did a full eval for LDs. Please consider asking, in writing, for a LD evaluation. Although my son did not qualify for Physical therapy or Occupation therapy via the school (ie the dysgraphia wasn’t “bad” enough) they were able to give us exercises to do at home and the name of outside OT and PT people who specialized it this.
Also, please consider reposting in the parenting with LD or teaching LD boards. This board gets very little traffic and your post will be missed by people with a lot of knownledge in this area.
ME