Dysgraphia

There is a lot of information and common knowledge out there about dyslexia. But what about dysgraphia? My middle child was finally diagnosed with this when he was in Year 6 and had changed primary schools. I had been saying for years that there was a problem with his writing. I was ignored and told he was lazy. But this was not the case. No matter how much handwriting practise he did, it looked like turkey scrawl. I say turkey instead of chicken cause even now at 14 he writes the size of a 7 year old. And he will go back and reform letters that were perfectly all right to begin with, so his writing is filled with big pencil or ink smudges. An example of the problem would be his Year 5 Test, where they had to write a story. The average was 1.5 pages written in an hour. He made: 2 sentences.

What is dysghrapia?

Dysgraphia is a learning disability resulting from the difficulty in expressing thoughts in writing and graphing. It generally refers to extremely poor handwriting.

Students with dysgraphia often have sequencing problems. Studies indicate that what usually appears to be a perceptual problem (reversing letters/numbers, writing words backwards, writing letters out of order, and very sloppy handwriting) usually seems to be directly related to sequential/rational information processing. These students often have difficulty with the sequence of letters and words as they write. As a result, the student either needs to slow down in order to write accurately, or experiences extreme difficulty with the "mechanics" of writing (spelling, punctuation, etc.). They also tend to intermix letters and numbers in formulas. Usually they have difficulty even when they do their work more slowly. And by slowing down or getting "stuck" with the details of writing they often lose the thoughts that they are trying to write about.

SYMPTOMS

1. Students may exhibit strong verbal but particularly poor writing skills .

2. Random (or non-existent) punctuation. Spelling errors (sometimes same word spelled differently); reversals; phonic approximations; syllable omissions; errors in common suffixes. Clumsiness and disordering of syntax; an impression of illiteracy. Misinterpretation of questions and questionnaire items. Disordered numbering and written number reversals.

3. Generally illegible writing (despite appropriate time and attention given the task).

4. Inconsistencies : mixtures of print and cursive, upper and lower case, or irregular sizes, shapes, or slant of letters.

5. Unfinished words or letters, omitted words.

6. Inconsistent position on page with respect to lines and margins and inconsistent spaces between words and letters.

7. Cramped or unusual grip, especially holding the writing instrument very close to the paper, or holding thumb over two fingers and writing from the wrist.

8. Talking to self while writing, or carefully watching the hand that is writing.

9. Slow or labored copying or writing - even if it is neat and legible.

Taken from http://www.as.wvu.edu/~scidis/dysgraphia.html

I am really lucky at the high school that they have taken this into consideration for my son. In some classes he has a scribe assigned to him, so that they can take down notes, his teachers will also give him a lot of the material photocopied so that he doesn't have to take down notes and things, jsut highlight main points, they give him extra time with assignments  so that he can start to work on the early to allow him to have it handed in at the same time as others.

If you notice your child has untidy writing, or is an extremely poor speller regardless of how much work you and the teachers put in with them, think about disgraphia. You never know.

Leisa