Help understanding dysgraphia

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I don't understand what dysgraphia is, or what is done about it from what I can find looking it up. Can anyone explain what having dysgraphia means?

It's a motor skills impairment that causes poor handwriting. It also causes the hand to get tired more quickly when writing. I don't think there's a cure for it, but for me at least, my handwriting got better as I grew older.

Can you tell me how it was identified? Is it by psychologists or is this an OT issue, or something else?

It's very much an OT thing, Psychs understand it because they also have training in cognitive processes, but it is diagnosed and treated by OT, most psychs wont know the therapy techniques.

Motor planning is your brains ability to tell your body what to do. This involves 3 stages: Ideation ("the idea" of what you want to do), Planning (working out which signals to send to which muscles and in what order), and Execution (actually doing it). The 3 stages together is Motor Praxis.

People with dysgraphia have difficulty with motor planning in relation to writing, forming letters, retrieving letters and words from memory. People with motor dyspraxia have difficulty with all motor planning of all movements.

My son has motor dyspraxia, so we didn't ever need to identify it, we knew about the dyspraxia and anticipated the difficulty with writing, so I can tell you more about helping them than the initial stage of identifying it. There is a website www.understood.org who come up on my facebook feed and have posted a few times about identifying dysgraphia, from what I can tell they appear to have good and accurate information, you might find it helpful.

Here's an excellent video about dysgraphia: https://www.understood.org/en/learning- ... hia-basics

Thank you both. I just looked at Understood and it's helpful some it's hard to know where to go with the handwriting issues. I am wondering if the schools ever help past 1-2nd grade?

In my opinion, schools don't teach handwriting in a way that is suitable for a child with dysgraphia and I don't believe the teachers have the expertise to help.

For example, to learn to write my son did "patterning training". So he learnt to draw a straight line called a "tall man down", a sideways line was a "side to side", a U shape "down and under" etc. This took a year. Then he learnt the shape of letters using a range of tools the OT had, a plastic mould thing you role a marble and the marble follows the shape of the letter, making letter shapes from playdough etc. Then we matched the letter shapes with hand signals, to this day if he can't remember the shape of a letter I give him the hand signal and he remembers. Then the last thing you do is teach them to actually write the letter, give the hand signal and then give instructions e.g. "u" would be "down and under then tall man down".

A school teacher wouldn't know to do any of this, they just write it on the board and expect the child to copy, my child is not capable of that, without his OT he would not have learnt to write in school.

What I've described above is just the beginning, then they have to learn "whole word patterning" and "word pattern recall" and other complex things I'm only just learning about. Even my sons special school (he went to a Language Development Centre for Kindy to grade 1) they have missed noticing that the reason he is unable to write words is that they have not explicitly taught him "letter sequencing" or "whole word pattern recall" and his proprioceptive feedback is not developed enough so personally I have told them to back off on his writing whole words because there is no point until we work on feedback. I actually used the words "back off" last year with the "specialist teacher" who takes him out of class to work on writing.

Anyway, my point is that it's likely your child has missed being taught a couple of crucial stages, because schools don't break it down into stages and the teachers are not experts in identify what is missing and teaching it to him. You need an OT who has experience with dyspraxia or other motor planning disorders and has experience taking a child from zero to fluid writing. I find the therapists who have experience working with a child from 2 years to 12 years and so they have helped a child through every stage start to finish are the best ones.

I would love to have her get OT because I know she, and her teachers, are frustrated with her handwriting. I don't think I can, though. I think they feel she's not that bad so if they just tell her to do better, she will, but it is hard for her.

I am interested in how you said to back off, did you use humor or say it as a question or just tell them as a directive? I would like to learn to tell them to back off.

Is dysgraphia anything other than a fancy way to say the teacher, or whoever is in charge, doesn't like your handwriting?

Lol yes it was a directive. I'm autistic, I have to try very hard not be blunt, and after 10 minutes of trying to explain that he has missed crucial stepping stones in writing, which need to be learned before she starts trying to get him to write sentences, I had enough of being polite.

I've also told an EA that she will help him for one year, I will manage his development for 18 years and it is my responsibility to help him become a high functioning adult so what I say goes.

I did once let a teacher do what she thought was best, and I believe her intentions were right she just didn't really know what she was doing like she thought she did. This was also over writing. By the end of 1 term he was chewing his lips, chewing his shirt, flapping constantly, having meltdowns etc and all of his letters turned backwards - 6 months of unnecessary therapy to fix her "tough love" approach. From now on if it doesn't feel right to me I won't let them do it, I know best.

Luckily most teachers and therapists are really good, we've had some brilliant ones. I wouldn't do anything without asking our OT and psych what they thought and its rare that they disagree, I know I'm right when I think a particular thing needs focus and they both instantly agree with me. His teacher last year was brilliant too.

I also have a good friend who's a psychologist specialising in AS. She has been telling me for years that I am his advocate and I have the right to expect and demand that every person involved in his care or learning fully provides for his needs. Once you get to the place where your number one job is being their advocate, it gets easier to be firm with people when you have to.

I'm unaware of your financial situation obviously, but you can pay a private OT to do an assessment without a referral, then the OT will write a recommendation saying that your daughter needs OT, and then you can get a referral for OT. Sounds ridiculously backwards, but if you feel like that's what she needs. In my city an OT assessment is about $230 with a written report.

The problem is the expectations on handwriting go up on a pretty steep curve. I would make them test her. I wanted our son tested for fine motor skill issues in Kindergarten, but they convinced me the standard at that age was very minimal, so I deferred it to 1st grade, and made them test. He was also behind in other things like buttons and that kind of thing too, but they really only helped with handwriting.

The other issue you have to consider, is they may test your child informally, in a laboratory setting of a quiet, plain room, with no distractions and an unlimited time to make her letters.. My son was bad enough to flunk anyway, but if your kid can write neatly with no pressure or time limit, you especially want to make sure that they use some kind of time metric. (Informal tests just cost contractor/employee time and are therefore cheaper than formal ones)

When I was a kid (I don't know what they do know) we had to start take notes in 6th grade by hand. (Do they do it by typing in their IPads now? I don't know.) and if you have bad handwriting it makes it hard to keep up and take the notes and then be able to read it later. So, I really would tryt o get your child help earlier rather than later so she will be ready for the demands as they increase.

Thank you all. I feel like I am juggling too many different things right now, and it is exhausting and so frustrating that asking for services is like buying a used car, or play poker... I'm supposed to negotiate, hide things, they certainly do.....I will try to get them to look harder at her needs. I do not like playing these games. People suggested I use an advocate and it's a wonderful idea but they are insanely expensive here.

If you can't get the school to give OT, the materials from Handwriting Without Tears are fairly inexpensive -- this is the program that most OT's use to teach letter formation. You could buy them and try teaching her yourself. The wet-dry-try method on the small chalkboard is particularly good.

We use HWT (Handwriting without Tears) at home, and it is what they used in our school district. Luckily my son is hyperlexic and loves letters and will do the program, but he picks and chooses what he does (individual letters and small words at most) He does not like the sentences and paragraphs b/c that is when he runs into issues.

I think he "draws" the letters as opposed to writing them, which is evidently a different brain process and I think harder to do quickly and he does not have much stamina. I mentioned that to the IEP committee and the school OT and they responded that perhaps that was so, but didn't do anything than the usual.

Waterfalls, I don't know what your daughter's specific issues are, but I would have her write a short paragraph (about a special interest, maybe) at home and see what you think.

If your school posts written work in the halls and in the classroom, you should get at least a general idea of how behind she is. You can compare her work on the same project, right next to her classmates. I found in our case, that the project work was much different than the quiet room practice work, and it helped me call B.S when I needed to b.c I could see the differences in the actual classwork and so could they. When they tried to use the effort card, I told them that we all know he is hyperlexic and a perfectionist about letters, and if he could do it fast and perfect at the same time he would.

It's very hard for me to be an effective advocate. I get upset so much when people play with me even by accident. Both my kids are telling me sped teacher said some things in an email today to stay out of trouble and avoid looking bad which I took seriously. She is not worried about handwriting. I am because while it isn't terrible, my daughter is upset being criticized for it by sped teacher and when she can get away with it she will avoid silverware, she has trouble tying shoes, she is in middle school.....so I suppose maybe this is more of a fine motor issue than dysgraphia?

i got a D in handwriting early in 5th grade. my teacher recommended dance lessons, which i took. with that, and great attention to my writing, i had an A by the end of the year. i don't have great penmanship today, but if i print, i can make it legible. i have both fine motor issues and dysgraphia. i think they are related.