dysgraphia

[Sally44]

I now have it in formal writing that my son has disgraphia.

Reading about it it is blooming obvious he has it.

But what will this mean from a statement/school input point of view.

 

If this is included in section 2 of the Statement. Who should look at his difficulties to see what supports school can use. (I notice myself how slow he is, and how he loses his place if he has to look from a worksheet or number card back to his work). What kind of things should it specify in terms of hours of support or staff/professional input.

 

What, if anything, should he have access to.

He already has a writing programme.

Is disgraphia the remit of the EP or the OT?

 

My son's is very severe. His ability to read is better than his ability to write from memory. For example he would have a go and might work out the word 'tractor'. But when asked to write 'tractor' he wrote: 'ratoN Ufo' - he wrote other words and they were also off track eg. 'house' he wrote 'hwTicif'.

 

What is the difference between dyslexia and disgraphia?

[JsMum]

I found your post interesting, especially as J has Dyslexia, I looked it up and found this for treatments.

 

Treatment for dysgraphia varies and may include treatment for motor disorders to help control writing movements. Other treatments may address impaired memory or other neurological problems. Some physicians recommend that individuals with dysgraphia use computers to avoid the problems of handwriting.

 

Occupational therapy could be considered to strengthen muscle tone, improve dexterity, and evaluate eye-hand coordination. Dysgraphic children should also be evaluated for ambidexterity, which can delay fine motor skills in early childhood.

 

Often small things can help students with dysgraphia, such as allowing them to use a preferred writing utensil or allowing them to submit typewritten work instead of requiring their work to be handwritten.

 

Suggestions for teachers and parents:

 

1.Use of small pencils (a typical pencil cut in thirds) golf pencils, or triangular shaped pencils all promote a functional grip. Jumbo pencils are useful for individuals with tremors or some types of cerebral palsy.

 

2.Ensure that solid handwriting instruction has taken place. The student should be able to tell how each letter is made using the same verbiage as the teacher.

 

3.Before the student begins to compose a paper, have them engage in prewriting activities such as webbing, or verbalizing what they will write about.

 

4.Use pre-lined paper that has yellow highlighting where the words are supposed to go

 

5.Allow students extra time to complete in-class assignments; otherwise they won't get the benefit of the instructional practice

 

6.Get students keyboarding early on

 

7.Allow students to use laptop or other computer for class work

 

8.Allow children to dictate to an adult; they can then recopy if necessary

 

9.Allow children to dictate into a tape recorder; they or an adult can transcribe later. This allows the creative output process to occur without being stopped by the execution problem.

 

10.a computer equipped with a speech recognition system can be a huge asset, but it can be difficult to find a quiet space in which to use it.

 

this info is from

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgraphia

 

Maybe spersific books on Disgraphia may have more ideas.

 

I dont see why most of the suggestions here cant be added to his statement in time.

 

JsMumxxxx

 

Edited November 28, 2009 by JsMum

[Karen A]

Hi.If disgraphia is difficulty in the pysical act of writing due to motor difficulties that is exactly what Ben has only it is included as part of his dyspraxia diagnosis.

For Ben the answer was simple.

An alphasmart was documented as provision within the Statement.

Now Ben can touch type at speed having picked it up himself.

His Statement for secondary includes the use of a laptop.

In the last month Ben has started to do a bit more writing and has finally learned to hold a pencil with a grip that does not give him cramp.

However the reality is that he will always need to use a lap top because he could never work at the level he is capable of whilst handwriting.

Who asks for handwritten information now anyway.

Ben's psychiatrist has handwriting that is unreadable and he has done ok.

Some people use a scribe but that would drive Ben to distraction.I do not know of anyone who would write quickly enough and his TA would need to be a graduate to understand him.....and I am not joking.

 

I have sent you a pm that might also be useful.

I was going to post a link but am not sure if the organisation that supplied it allows web use.

Edited November 28, 2009 by Karen A

[Sally44]

Is it typical of a child with disgraphia to be better at using phonics to decode words to read. But if they don't have something to 'see' and are trying to write from memory, that their ability to retrieve from memory the form, sound, sequence of the letters/word is much much poorer.

 

For example, I said in my earlier post that I think if my son saw the word 'tractor' he would be able to use some phonic knowledge and sound out some of the letters and have a go. But if you tell him to try to write tractor, it is like he no phonic knowledge because he cannot apply what he does know. Ie. he knows the letter 't' and what sound it makes. Yet he doesn't begin to write tractor with a 't', he starts with an 'r'. His attempts to write are just bizarre and illegible.

 

He also fluctuates between very hard and very light handwriting. It is hard if he is copying from somewhere, and very light if he is trying to write from memory.

 

He finds it very hard to 'hold' information in his working memory. We were doing some numeracy work, and he has to use so many tools to help him remember what to do, how to do it, that he can forget what he is doing, or where he is in the process.

 

He finds it hard to look from the board to his paper, or from the worksheet to his paper. He finds it hard to locate numbers on the number grid and may begin to write on the wrong part of his paper.

 

With a sum like 22-7, he has to have a number grid. He has to draw a line and write the number 22 at the right hand side. Then he has to draw 7 backward jumps on the number line (and he has to place a finger inside each jump to ensure he has done 7). Then he writes the numbers going backwords ie. 22, 21 etc. He hasn't given himself enough space to write the numbers, he makes mistakes. He forgets how many jumps he needed to make and has to re-count with fingers again. I ask him what the sum is and he says it is 'add', so I remind him it is 'minus'. By this stage he is in tears. He does get there in the end. But it has taken so long, probably around 7 mins to do one sum. It is such a slog for him he is not motivated to attempt another one! Can't blame him. He also struggles to 'say' what the number is. He knows what it is and can write it. But 22-7= 15. My son has to count, usually from 1 to get to the number to tell you what it is called.

 

And my son tells me when he grows up he wants to be a scientist and invent new weapons for the army. So I try to encourage him by saying that you need to practice his reading and numeracy if he wants to be a scientist!

 

Do the symptoms or difficulties get better or easier as they grow up, or does it remain at the same level of difficulty throughout their lives?

 

As disgraphia has many different difficulties, doesn't any child need to be seen by an EP that would know what the skills needed are, and who can assess where the problems are?

 

 

[shaz71]

Is it typical of a child with disgraphia to be better at using phonics to decode words to read. But if they don't have something to 'see' and are trying to write from memory, that their ability to retrieve from memory the form, sound, sequence of the letters/word is much much poorer.

 

For example, I said in my earlier post that I think if my son saw the word 'tractor' he would be able to use some phonic knowledge and sound out some of the letters and have a go. But if you tell him to try to write tractor, it is like he no phonic knowledge because he cannot apply what he does know. Ie. he knows the letter 't' and what sound it makes. Yet he doesn't begin to write tractor with a 't', he starts with an 'r'. His attempts to write are just bizarre and illegible.

 

He also fluctuates between very hard and very light handwriting. It is hard if he is copying from somewhere, and very light if he is trying to write from memory.

 

He finds it very hard to 'hold' information in his working memory. We were doing some numeracy work, and he has to use so many tools to help him remember what to do, how to do it, that he can forget what he is doing, or where he is in the process.

 

He finds it hard to look from the board to his paper, or from the worksheet to his paper. He finds it hard to locate numbers on the number grid and may begin to write on the wrong part of his paper.

 

With a sum like 22-7, he has to have a number grid. He has to draw a line and write the number 22 at the right hand side. Then he has to draw 7 backward jumps on the number line (and he has to place a finger inside each jump to ensure he has done 7). Then he writes the numbers going backwords ie. 22, 21 etc. He hasn't given himself enough space to write the numbers, he makes mistakes. He forgets how many jumps he needed to make and has to re-count with fingers again. I ask him what the sum is and he says it is 'add', so I remind him it is 'minus'. By this stage he is in tears. He does get there in the end. But it has taken so long, probably around 7 mins to do one sum. It is such a slog for him he is not motivated to attempt another one! Can't blame him. He also struggles to 'say' what the number is. He knows what it is and can write it. But 22-7= 15. My son has to count, usually from 1 to get to the number to tell you what it is called.

 

And my son tells me when he grows up he wants to be a scientist and invent new weapons for the army. So I try to encourage him by saying that you need to practice his reading and numeracy if he wants to be a scientist!

 

Do the symptoms or difficulties get better or easier as they grow up, or does it remain at the same level of difficulty throughout their lives?

 

As disgraphia has many different difficulties, doesn't any child need to be seen by an EP that would know what the skills needed are, and who can assess where the problems are?

 

Hi Sally how old is your son? My daughter struggles with writing it hurts her hand after she has done a fair bit, if she takes her time she can do neat writing but if told to hurry it is scrawly, my daughter used to do what you are saying with the spelling of things she is getting better as you can sort of see what she is trying to spell whereas in yr1 and 2 you didn't have a clue, she spells it how it sounds not how it looks, she as memory issues, like your son she has to count from 1 and if she loses her place she will start from 1 again, she reads numbers back to front like 15 is 51 to her and it isn't just reading either the other day she asked how old i was so i said 38 she then said that is old 83 i said no it is 38 she then said yes 83 makes 83???????? so she has some number problem going on......She is just starting to being looked at properly at school by the teachers and senco as last year they treat me like a neurotic mum. She now as iep with 5 targets on, the senco said he would look at her pencil grip and get different pen for her, i also asked about dyslexia which they can only test for irlens so they did and turns out she needs a red overlay, so they are doing things, but i would be happier with an ed psych looking at her to see if she is struggling in other areas which i am going to ask the senco about this, i like him not too keen on the assistant senco though she is the one that made me feel neurotic last year and even this year i asked about dyslexia etc spoke to her first before i saw senco as he was in meeting, and she was the one that said can't diagnose dyslexia and neither can the ed psych so pointless getting one to look at her?????? So will not speak to her about it will speak to the senco himself he is nice. Sorry i can ramble. Sharon x

 

[NobbyNobbs]

i probably have dysgraphia, but like everything else it wasn't picked up in school. noone can read my writing (including me!) it gets progressively worse usually the first 5 words you can work out and from that point on its anyones guess what i've written. i can't confortably hold a pen properly, it makes my fingers hurt and my writing is actually worse than when holding a pen the 'wrong' way. i write a for g, b and d get round the wrong way etc. i was constantly told off at school for delibrately writing badly - those first 5 letters made everyone think i was just lazy. their answer was to spend hours and hours writing out aaaaaaa bbbbbbb etc. i was still doing this at age 15.

 

i was taught the mechanics of how to form letters very well, but i have to delibrately think of how to draw each letter in the word as i am writing it or it just comes out as a line or squiggle. its very frustrating!

 

its interesting your comments about problems locating specific information on a page and copying from a document. these problems were picked up on my IQ test as being terrible compared to the rest of my ability, but the educational psychologist didn't say it could have a specific cause.

 

i think probably in this day and age, the best option is teaching him how to type and getting access to a laptop/whatever written into his statement. apart from scribbling quick notes i dont write anything by hand, there would be no point since i can't read it anyway. i find it a lot easier to accurately get my thoughts onto the page when i type. i also have the voice recognition software, but found it irritating as i had to stop and correct it.

[Sally44]

Thanks everyone for the information and advice.

It must be awful to actually go through school and leave without being able to write. I know it happens alot. But it should not be happening.

 

But at what stage, or age, do you say 'okay phonics and handwriting are not working, and it is actually slowing him down'. Who would make the decision unless I ask for it? I've been saying since year 1 that he learnt all his flashcards and has never got back to that same level with phonics. He cannot write at home or in any other environment, so I am really interested to see how school are saying he gets 50% of his spelling tests right!!

 

He is now 8. I would like him to be able to type by the time he leaves primary school.

 

 

[NobbyNobbs]

personally, i dont like phonics. they're absolutely wonderful for most kids, but for some, they're no good and because the curriculum insists on using them teachers feel they can't teach kids in any other way. similarly the convoluted way maths is taught these days (number lines etc) doesn't work for some kids, it actually confuses them as there are twice as many steps to get the answer than the old fashioned way. have you tried working on things in different ways? pre-typing perhaps you could print off alphabet cards, and get him to arrange the letters into the word? i taught myself to spell using a hangman game, moving the letters around until i got the right order. that would seperate the spelling from the writing at least. if he can make some progress on a system like that then you could easily say handwriting is inappropriate for him

[chris54]

Iv not come across the term 'Dysgraphia' before but I would say from what has been written here is that both my son who is 9 and my self have it to some extent at least. A lot of the strategies mentioned in JsMums post are used or have been tried to help my son. He does use keyboards some of the time at school but takes as long if not longer than by hand so limited usefulness, For some work at school, tests etc, he has a scribe.

 

I've been saying since year 1 that he learnt all his flashcards and has never got back to that same level with phonics.

Do you mean your son has forgotten what he learnt in year one?

 

When it comes to memory, I simple don't have one. On the other hand my son has a good memory for some thing but not others. He finds things like remembering his times tables very difficult, he is up to his 7 time at the moment. But if you actually watch him use them, what he is actually doing is calculating each step and no reciting from memory. Just what I have always done. He is also learning/teaching him self to manipulate numbers in his head to compensate for this inability to memorise by rote. Just what I do.

 

He can read very well now, far beyond his other academic levels, probably better than me, certainly faster. But when it come to spelling he, like my self, is unable to remember how word are spelt, he will have read something and then go to write it and get it spelt wrong. We both spell phonetically, I'm doing it as I type this. I know for people that don't have to do this it is hard for them to fully understand what I mean by that.

My son will often get word spelt wrong, partly as he has a tendency to mispronounce some words and partly because a lot of word are not pronounced as phonetics would say they should be. (Or is that the other way round, but I'm sure you know what I mean.)

 

He is, as I have done/am still doing, learning methods of dealing with this. One, and I know this does not make sense as I said about poor memory, is to learn and use in your head the phonetic pronunciation of words.

He does poor at selling tests but if you are tuned into phonetics you can read most of what he puts done on paper, that is if you can get over the barrier of his very poor hand writing.

 

Probably because I have lived with the problems he has all my life I don't see them as others do.

 

Now I think I will end as I seem to have drifted off into my own thoughts.

 

I thought I would add that both he and myself have been identified as being dyslexic.

Edited November 29, 2009 by chris54

[Sally44]

To answer your question Chris: Yes he learnt 45+ flashcards by sight in reception. Then they started phonics and we recorded how he gradually lost those words. The last assessment on his IEP before he moved school was that he knew 8 of them. So I want to ask his teacher how many he now knows in his new school.

 

I find it very hard when professionals talk about 'poor memory' or 'poor memory retrieval', because although it is poor in some areas, it is also brilliant in others. And I feel that they are not tapping into the ways he does remember and retrieve information. He can watch a DVD and after a couple of times seeing it he knows all of the dialogue. He can quote it verbatum. I think that is because the TV is visual with the auditory input running along with it. I can watch him as he re-plays TV programmes or DVDs in his head and he is like a recording machine. I can see him fast forwarding to the relevant 'picture' and saying the auditory output that accompanied it. Then professionals will say 'but he doesn't have an understanding of it'. Oh yes he does. He may ask me questions about what something means, or check with me that he has heard a word right. But generally yes he understands it. He can watch the film Lassie and I can ask him questions about what is happening, how the boy is feeling, how the dog is feeling etc and he can answer it.

 

Then we get to academic stuff. Part of the difficulty has to be that it is 'abstract', and letters and numbers make no sense unless they explain something. He has limited use of phonics to read. He can immediately rote learn reading books because he knows exactly what is written on each page. Words he can read in his reading book, he cannot necessarily read in a different context without the visual picture. If I have a list of words and I prompt him by asking him to point to the word that says x, y and z, he can do that, unless all the words start with the same letter.

 

However, regardless of how well he knows a word to read it, if you remove all visual clues and ask him to write it, it is as though not only can he not retrieve it, he cannot apply phonics to help him. He can use phonics to help him read eg. c-a-t and blend them to say 'cat'. But if you ask him to spell a word he will put all kinds of letters that are not even in it. I've also noticed that his handwriting is different depending on whether I am asking him to write a word from a flashcard - in which case it is strong and confident as opposed to asking him to use phonics where it is weak, spidery small and close together.

 

Yet school have said at his MEP meeting that he is getting around 50% of his spelling tests right on a weekly basis. I have to see this and for them to explain how they do it. It is very strong to say I believe they are lying, or they are allowing him to copy and therefore it isn't spontaneous. But whenever I go into school I can see how much they have to support him, prompt him and sign gestures to help him understand. If anything his performance in school is much worse than at home.

 

I just don't get the extreme differences in ability within the same area. How can someone be both awful and brilliant with their memory. He can remember some things in such fine details, yet he cannot remember names.

[Sally44]

I suppose my final thoughts are 'am I expecting or asking too much'.

He is the lowest performing child academically in his year. Yet he is assessed as high average cognitive ability.

So I do expect him to be doing better. But school say they are happy with his progress.

Yet his progress is negligible. If they are happy with his progress and he is at the bottom of the pile. How can any child get access to anything because they are all doing better than him??

 

I've been phoned by BIBIC, so I am waiting for an appointment date. I am hoping to be able to explain to them exactly where my main frustrations lie at the moment and see if we can get to the bottom, or at least get a better idea of his weaknesses and strengths. I strongly feel that he has enough strengths to help him achieve. But I am not a professional. I need them to confirm what I feel is true and for them to point the way forward. In the educational system they just don't want to spend any time or money on SEN children having them assessed by an EP. My son has such high expectations for his future, and it just isn't going to happen if we continue as presently.

[shaz71]

I suppose my final thoughts are 'am I expecting or asking too much'.

He is the lowest performing child academically in his year. Yet he is assessed as high average cognitive ability.

So I do expect him to be doing better. But school say they are happy with his progress.

Yet his progress is negligible. If they are happy with his progress and he is at the bottom of the pile. How can any child get access to anything because they are all doing better than him??

 

I've been phoned by BIBIC, so I am waiting for an appointment date. I am hoping to be able to explain to them exactly where my main frustrations lie at the moment and see if we can get to the bottom, or at least get a better idea of his weaknesses and strengths. I strongly feel that he has enough strengths to help him achieve. But I am not a professional. I need them to confirm what I feel is true and for them to point the way forward. In the educational system they just don't want to spend any time or money on SEN children having them assessed by an EP. My son has such high expectations for his future, and it just isn't going to happen if we continue as presently.

 

Hi Sally my daughter as never been assessed although i do know she has a lot of difficulties but when i spoke to the ass senco she said that ed psych would be no good assessing dyslexia and fobbed me off, but i will see the senco and ask him by himself, i do think my daughter as fine motor difficulties, auditory difficulties, she as irlens which as just been found out because i nagged them about dyslexia, and speech and language immaturity by two years. So you are saying that your son hasn't been assessed in school? As he got a diagnosis? My daughter hasn't as they put all her problems down to me and her dad splitting up a year and a bit ago, but she has been like this since the age of 2 before that i didn't know i had her she would potter around not babbling so quiet. I am now on a parenting course which is helping but i am also finding coping mechanisms and actually doing what the psychologist said not to and analyzing my daughter as it is helping me find why she is doing the behaviours. ###### professionals haven't a clue. Sharon x