Handwriting issues, continued.

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Eldest is in second grade now, and is doing well. Top of his class for reading, cruising through math, enjoying computers and science probably a little too much.

Writing, though. That continues to be a problem. It bothers him that he's got the worst handwriting in his class -- "No one else writes like a baby!" -- and he gets really upset when any mention is made of the fact that he tends to write most of his letters and numbers backwards.

He does a lot better with legibility if he takes his time, but that's very difficult to achieve. And backwards remains backwards, even if he's being careful.

Eldest is getting PT at school, albeit not much. And his teacher understands his issues, and isn't concerned with his handwriting -- she knows that he's doing his best, and praises him for that. Nor am I particularly worried, not for it's own sake...but I don't like how upset he gets about it when we're doing homework, and how quick he is to declare himself "stupid" because of his mistakes.

(It did help when I pointed out what he excels at, and told him that everyone has things that they're good at and things that they're bad at. Not much help, but a little.)

I know that he's far from the only kid on the spectrum who's struggled with this. And he's showing signs of doing much better with typing, which will certainly see a lot more use in his future. But what are some things that we can do to help him out? Even just to the extent of making him feel better about it.

And should we be concerned about the letter/number reversals?

My son is 10 and says he writes like a first grader. He saw an OT twice a week this summer and it helped his writing a little, but it helped his confidence even more. See if your school has a slantboard that he can use. This helps my son a lot. They also did a lot of crazy things that we can not do at school like lie over an excersize ball, or have a pile of bean bag chairs on top of him.

We still battle the backwards letters, it gets tricky, spelling tests are a pain. Everyone tells me that we are all going to end up just typing anyway, but it is a really important skill. I found that making sandpaper letters helped my son with some of his letters, and seeing if the teachers will give him breaks when there is a lot of writing, so he doesn't get stressed.

Good luck!!

If he has an IEP, the school should be able to accommodate him by allowing him to use a computer or portable word processor (such as an AlphaSmart) for as many tasks as possible.

If you have an ipad, I bet there are some "handwriting" apps out there somewhere!

If he is having continuing problems it does need to be addressed, the sooner the better. The 'writing letters backwards' sort of suggests possible learning disabilities - dyslexia, dysgraphia - and he could very well face increasing difficulties if he is not given accomodation as he heads into high grades. His teacher now may be very accomodating, that does not mean that they all will be.

My daughter also has some significant handwriting issues and they are complicated and tied to more than one disability. I'd suggest requesting an evaluation from the school district asap. Better to err on the side of caution.

My son never did master writing by hand ... and it is all a mute point because he now keyboards. A lot of frustrating years in elementary school, however; the road to getting his thoughts onto paper comfortably and effectively was a long one, but we did find an effective process for it that I can document as the stages come up.

In general, in our experience, the hand isn't going to do what it isn't going to, although giving the child hand strengthening exercises and eye tracking exercises will help some if he, himself, is determined to improve his hand writing. Work with an OT and try to bring as many exercises home as possible, and use the fact that your son WANTS to do better on this skill as leverage (my son didn't really; it was so painful; he always begged us to do it for him). If any level of disability is involved, as there is with my son (disgraphia/hypotonia/hypermobility), the issue is going to take years of hard work and your son is going to have to accept that emotionally at some point. One of those gifts and burdens conversations; no one gets away with all gifts in life, everyone has a burden. But, hopefully, the issue isn't that bad and it will mostly be a matter spending extra time.

A lot of people recommend the series "writing without tears." I would look into it.

The backwards letters are a common phase; young children aren't linear, they don't track exclusively left to right, that is something they have to learn. They truly can just as easily write mirror style as left to write. He's a little on the old side for still having the issue, but it is most likely developmental / something he'll grow out of.

If you find him giving up, don't push too hard. The important thing at this age is to learn to compose thoughts more than to be able to physically write them. It is fine if he dictates and you write for him. You can also break up the process by writing what he dictates in light pencil or highlighter and having him trace over it. If he needs to practice his letters entirely separately from the composition process that is also fine; don't worry about it. He will integrate the skills when he is ready. It can't be forced and it can't be rushed.

One of these days I'll get our whole story written up ... I know I've done some posts on it in the past, but I've never pulled it all together.

Mom to another dysgraphic Aspie here - 10 (almost 11) and in 5th grade. We went the OT route for about 6 months. Since Julian's dysgraphia is processing based and not physical based, it didn't help with writing at all. However, it helped with drawing! Nice side effect.

He used to get very upset (second grade)about how his writing looked, to the point of erasing holes through the paper. I even brought writing samples to our IEP meetings, showing how his writing had essentially not changed at all since Kindergarten. We had an OT eval through the school last year, which they had to do before they were willing to allow a scribe as a accommodation. This evaluation was less than helpful, "Copy these words." was the extent of the writing evaluation. Copying a sentence that is written out vs. having to write an original thought that you formulate are very different things.

I don't know exactly when things changed, but he no longer cares about what his writing looks like. It's been that way for about 2.5 years though. I suspect that explaining what dysgraphia was and why it was difficult for him to write helped. Breaking down all of the individual steps involved in writing for him, instead of expecting him to be like his typical peers, to whom "writing" is just an automatic, one step process makes sense to him. It doesn't make writing any easier, but at least it makes logical sense and turns the focus away from what he can't do. He can express himself in written words, just not exactly the same way that most other people can, and that's OK.

So, as an accommodation we have a scribe for any written composition and on standardized tests. We had one teacher continue to tell Julian in class, "You just have to write!" (which leads to self injury, duh) we have also asked to decrease the amount of written work in the classroom - I'm not crazy about that one, since I think it's important that he continue to try where he is able, but his limit is about 7-8 words and his answers (especially in science, the class where it's happened the most) tend to be much longer. His scribe at school is his inclusion teacher and she did an amazing job of teaching him to dictate - he's responsible for editing for capital letters, punctuation and spelling once the words are typed/written.

We've worked on keyboarding, but even that is very slow. He can dictate 300 + words in 20 minutes but would type maybe 20 in the same time. He worked his way through touch typing and knows the keys but still can't translate those words into text. I see some speech to text tech in our future.

DW_a_mom - that would be an amazingly cool resource, to have that whole process compiled together.

Elizabeth

I'm an adult and never did master handwriting. Cursive is the worst, so I usually print everything in block letters. Getting a computer was the best thing for me, because I type out 99% of what I write. I only use handwriting for notes and post-its. Otherwise, I type on my computer, or even on my iPod Touch.

BTW, I'm a writer/journalist with hundreds of magazine articles and various books published, so tell your son not to sweat the handwriting thing too much (especially since he's doing so well in school). Oh, and I never learned to type properly, I use 2 fingers and a thumb.

In case you didn't see it, the advice/links below are what I just gave in response to another handwriting question:


http://www.edmegastore.com/fine-motor-skills.html: fine motor skills stuff for sale.

http://www.especialneeds.com/aba-autism ... -aids.html: fine motor skills stuff for sale.

http://www.hwtears.com/hwt/online-tools/screener: free handwriting screener.

The above three links are from the "autism links" on my free website, www.freevideosforautistickids.com.

You might also try http://www.therapro.com/ for products. I think that I got a weighted glove from that site, and it helped somewhat.

The product that the ABA therapist successfully used with my son with classic autism and is currently using with my younger son was a homemade version of the device below:

http://www.edmegastore.com/handiwriter.html

The device that they had some luck with at school was the one below:

http://www.especialneeds.com/penagain-t ... ncils.html.

(Honestly, the main thing that helped the most was having people work with him four days a week that were able to keep him motivated and withstand his tears of frustration and angry outbursts.)

I agree that it is important to address the handwriting issue as soon as possible and to seek whatever help you can from the school--maybe getting it into the IEP that the school is to do the "Handwriting Without Tears" program, evaluation by an OT. You may need to push for help.

My younger brother has horrible handwriting and is probably an aspie. He has an M. B. A. and successfully works as an accountant. However, he types everything now because he fears the type of discrimination that he felt that he experienced at school due to poor penmanship. He felt that some teachers would judge intellect based, in part, upon handwriting.

Covuschik, most children's hands are not developmentally ready to type in elementary school. While it is great to introduce the skill, you aren't likely to get that far. But in 6th grade, my son was ready, the OT ran some tests and decided it was time, and that was the full focus of her service that year: she got him to reasonable typing fluency.

It sounds like you've been on top of all the right steps so far, and hopefully with some assistance from the school you can affect a transition to keyboarding in middle school. My son had no electives in middle school: he went to academic support and worked on staying organized (executive function), homework (reduce stress), and typing/editing. Middle school is a good time to make that investment, even though giving up an elective is always going to be a heart breaking choice (we tried to make it up to him in the summers, he did some super cool - and expensive - things we otherwise would have balked at).

I'm on my phone so sorry if I made typos I've missed.

Good luck!

We had our parent/teacher conference yesterday, and Eldest is doing great. All As and Bs, reading well ahead of his grade level, getting on well with the other kids. His handwriting issues continue, but his teacher's not sweating them -- the important thing right now, she says, is for him to get used to organizing his thoughts and putting them on paper.

So, "Yay!" on that front.

I asked about cursive -- mainly because Eldest has been reading a lot of books lately that contain a passage or two in cursive, and needs us to translate those bits for him -- and she mentioned that she was going to be introducing it after the new year, because the kids are expressing interest. She opined that Eldest *might* do better with cursive, as the letters all tend to flow in the same direction. And then again, he might not. Again, not a matter of major concern.

But I'm wondering what people's experience has been with cursive vs. printing. I don't think that it's going to be much easier for him, but I suspect that he'll be less inclined to reverse letters.

My daughter is in 3rd grade and they are working on cursive now. She wants to write in cursive and tries, but it comes out looking like non-cursive text just connected with lines. It causes her to repeat strokes over and over and have to concentrate too much. That's right now-maybe it will get better. She's great at practicing one letter cursive (but very slow) but not yet great at a whole word. She cannot read cursive at all.

Can't help kids with existing writing problems - but in hopes we've got some proactive parents of preschoolers here, I thought this was a BRILLIANT idea: making racetrack letters that you can drive matchbox or hotwheels cars on! They've got a bunch of other ideas not only for motor control but for recognition, too!

You could even take it one step farther and put directional indicators on the racetrack!

http://rockabyebutterfly.blogspot.com/2 ... h-i-c.html

Letter/number reversals should generally clear up by 2nd grade, in the absence of other issues.

We have issues with writing, too. We have issues with punctuation (knowing when to put it), formation of letters, and spelling. Getting thoughts down on paper, if they are thoughts he is comfortable with, is ok, but he will spell words incorrectly that he actually knows how to spell verbally. He gets extremely frustrated and rips holes through the paper when erasing. It's mainly a major issue when he is having to edit (which he isn't very capable of doing) and when he is doing responses for reading requiring him to take another perspective or make inferences. Then it's meltdown city and holes in the paper

Just wanted to update here... my daughter is highly dysgraphic. We had an assistive device meeting at the beginning of the month and my daughter will begin using a Neo in all of her classes so she can type, instead of write, all of her class work. It is cheaper than an iPad and the school is paying for her to have one 24/7. It is similar to a word processor - just a keyboard with a small screen to view what has been written - without any auto corrects. It plugs into a computer's USB drive and prints from any word type program. My daughter is THRILLED to use it.

The Neo

Some of my students with the worst print to brilliantly with cursive and really enjoy it!! Also, if he is reading well then it's likely not Dyslexia, however it could be Dysgraphia. Handwriting without Tears is a great program. I've had other students use it and really get a lot from it!! He really shouldn't be reversing too much at this age, so it really could be a dysgraphia thing.