Dysgraphia: When it's more than Bad Handwriting

When my son was in school, there wasn’t much information available about Dysgraphia. Now, there’s plenty, however, it’s still quite a confusing issue. Particularly since many professionals don’t really seem to be “on board” with Dysgraphia as an actual disability.

The College Board is very cut-and-dried. To them, dysgraphia is a fine motor skill deficit, period. No matter if a child has never been able to produce more than a paragraph using a pen or pencil; if testing doesn’t show a fine motor deficit, then that child will be handwriting their essay, thank-you-very-much. However, the fact that they even have dysgraphia listed as a disability is a step in the right direction. Just two years ago, they did not.

Many professionals agree with The College Board’s definition. So, when your child has problems with handwriting, they will test fine motor skills. This is appropriate, yes. What’s not appropriate is, if and when the test shows no fine motor delay, that they simply say, “Not dysgraphia, no fine motor delay, work harder.” Some occupational therapists just tell families, “We can’t help you with this.” Particularly if the child’s fine motor skills measure in the “average” range.

Yet the problem is very real, and very frustrating, especially for people who have something to say, and cannot get it out using a pen or pencil. It would be nice, and seems logical, to just let them use a computer for word processing, however, while some schools are happy to do this, others are not. And, you are still stuck with the problem of the SATs and other standardized tests requiring handwriting.

And, you’re also stuck with everyone else’s opinion about what you should do and their opinions about how important good handwriting is to being able to function as an adult: get a job, write a check (really?), go to the doctor, the DMV, I don’t know, the grocery store? Never mind that there are people with physical impairments who manage to actually get all these things accomplished: somehow if it’s neurological disability, like dysgraphia, many people think one simply cannot get along in the world without gaining that particular skill.

The NationalCenter for Learning Disabilities explains how to know if your child may have dysgraphia. You’ll see that some of the symptoms - difficulty with proper spacing, poor understanding of upper and lowercase letters, saying words aloud while writing, difficulty thinking of words to write, unfinished or omitted words, difficulty with syntax structure and grammar, for example - really don’t have a lot to do with fine motor control. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke agrees that it’s more than simply a fine motor difficulty.

So, since you and your child have to live in a world of not-so-accommodating others, as well as professionals who are not yet in agreement about what dysgraphia is or how to treat it, what to do? You have two options:

1) Therapy (that you might have to pay for yourself)

2) Advocate for accommodation, and teach your child to advocate for themselves

 

Therapy

Like any other neurological difficulty, dysgraphia is something that can be worked on: the earlier, the better. If you have a young child who has been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, you can figure that they will most likely need extra help in this area, and start working on it while they’re young. The AmericanAcademy of Neurology reports that children with autism are more likely to have handwriting problems, so go ahead and be proactive.  

If your child is older, you already know if they are struggling in this area. As someone gets older, they may or may not benefit from therapy, so you’ll want to try therapy and also be mindful that you are not simply going through the motions and never getting anywhere. If you’ve worked on it for a couple of years with no real progress, perhaps it’s time to think about how to work around it. Many professionals who do understand about dysgraphia are now recommending accommodations over therapy.

The first step to obtaining therapy is testing. Wrightslaw does an excellent job of helping parents understand just what schools should be testing for when they test for dysgraphia: it’s not just fine motor skills. Keep in mind that if your child tests “average” then schools do not need to provide therapy, even if the child is struggling. This doesn’t necessarily mean your child wouldn’t benefit from therapy for dysgraphia, it just means that they aren’t quite “bad enough” to receive therapy for free.

If you need to find a therapy provider on your own, the International Dyslexia Association also provides help and information about dysgraphia. You can send them an email asking for information and a list of providers in your area.

There are things you can do with your child or even older child or adult to help with handwriting. Some parents report that using a Tomy Megasketcher helps their children practice letters without fatiguing. Kate Gladstone has developed a handwriting repair program designed for people, who, like herself, have neurological handwriting difficulties. This program is now available as an iPhone application.

 And, last but not least, something I've been wanting to try because I have a very awkward grip is The Writing Claw, a tool that helps maintain a tripod pencil grip. 

Advocate for Accommodations

Most colleges have no problem giving accommodations for dysgraphia: they will assign note-takers, allow a student to use a laptop in class, and allow a student to word-process written assignments and tests. They require recent documentation of disability, however, so be prepared to show it. And, your child has to be willing to ask for the accommodation, so part of your job is to teach your child how to ask for help when they need it. At the beginning of each semester, my son has to take an accommodation letter around to each professor. He balked at it at first; but through discussion realized that he truly needed the accommodation. He was really happy he had done so when he was able to get his math test grade changed because the teacher misread his answer.

Public schools vary in their willingness to accommodate, although I’ve found that they are much happier to let a student use a computer to word-process if they are not also being asked to provide therapy. Again, keep in mind that you’ll need really good documentation for the future, so be sure everything is clearly stated in your child’s IEP, and proper testing is done.

When asking for accommodations, arm yourself with information. This won’t help you with those SATs, however, it will help you everywhere else, so stay informed. The Learning Disabilities Association of America lists some good accommodations, and Susan Jones, M.Ed, wrote an excellent review of accommodations and modifications for dysgraphia for The Resource Room. And ABC News reports that “For Intelligent Children with Autism, Handwriting is Barrier.” 

If you go this route, be prepared to spend some of your time educating those who work with your child. Each new year brings new teachers who do not necessarily understand that your child is not being “lazy” or “messy” when his or her handwriting is almost illegible. You’ll need to be creative, too. Science lab notebooks, for example, presented a challenge for my son, until we got duplicate sheets, had him word-process his answers and then printed them out and pasted them on the pages. More work, yes. Taught him the value of neatness, absolutely. Neatness that he was actually able to accomplish.

If I had to explain my beliefs about disability, I think that might be it in a nutshell: work as hard as you can to overcome your difficulties, understand that others are always going to have their perceptions and you do have some responsibility to try to understand and accommodate them while seeking appropriate accommodations for yourself. 

 

Dysgraphia: When it's more than bad handwriting by Sara Gardner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://ncld.org/.

Comments

[Brianpulliam.blogspot.com]

Thank for this, I struggled with this issue myself (showed itself in grade-school in the 70's). This is the first time I had seen it laid out in this manner.

In my case, the school I was at worked with me, and I was able to get to a point where I could print in a serviceable fashion. Cursive is still off-limits for me. I can pretty much sign my name, and that's about it.

Fortunately for me, I chose a technical career, as a result, this issue doesn't really impact me except when I need to get on a white board in front of people. I just try to remind myself to take my time, and keep it simple.

My 6 year old is now showing signs of the issue too, the good news is that I can address it with more empathy, and some strategies for dealing with it that are smarter than smashing up against that wall over and over again.

Fortunately for both of us, we don't have any other "learning disabilities", and I am happy to report my daughter is performing above average in all other area's.

[Paula Connor]

Gosh! well well well, at last an article that explains it well. Have had this issue with both sons and it is hard to diagnose when other learning difficulties are present also which is usually the case. I listened to years of "he'll grow out of it or he's lazy, not trying hard enough" blah blah blah. These difficulties are real and I think when a child is 17 and had tonnes of learning support it's time to say "no he won't grow out of it" accommodations are the only way to go to give kids like that a fair chance in exams.

[Cameron Sower]

To Townya Mayers,
I was diagnosed with dysgraphia after I failed my eighth grade year. If you want to get your sons school to both recognize and assist him; you might need to do what my parents did for me. They went to the school with the threat of a lawsuit if they did not get me tested. I realize that this is no small task but if your child does have dysgraphia you might be able to save him from a lot of pain in the future. I can say without any shame or humiliation that if my parents hadn't gone that far for me I would not be pursuing my dream of a doctorate in psychology right now. Your son is probably incredibly smart he even may be to the point of genius like myself. I believe that it is your responsibility to do everything in your power to make sure that your son is given every possible chance to succeed in this world. I wish you luck and hope for the best in your struggle for a better future.

[Sara Sanders Gardner]

Townya, your son should not have to keep writing papers by hand. The school can give him an accommodation of a typewriter or spoken word for responses and essays, if necessary. There is a program called "Dragon Naturally Speaking" that will produce text from speech if he cannot type, although it would be awesome for the school to put effort into teaching him how to keyboard and abandon efforts to work on his handwriting.

If you scroll down on this page to where it talks about dysgraphia: http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/ssd/accommodations/computer

you will see some tests that the College Board accepts as "proof" of dysgraphia. You will notice, however, that the College Board defines dysgraphia as a fine motor deficit, which does not actually describe dysgraphia in full, unfortunately. Perhaps by the time your son is ready to take college entrance exams, they will have changed their viewpoint, or everyone will be keyboarding essays, who knows. In any event, these tests:
Coding subtest of the Wechsler Cognitive Test
Beery Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration (VMI)
Rey Complex Figure Test
An academic test of writing. This demonstrates that the student's fine motor problems present severity in organization, presentation of ideas, richness of language, complex language structure. These tests are usually administered by school or clinical psychologists or educational diagnosticians. They include:
Woodcock-Johnson-III: Tests of Academic Achievement (General and Extended batteries including fluency measures)
Scholastic Abilities Test for Adults (SATA)
Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT II)
Test of Written Language III (TOWL III)
Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Second Edition (KTEA-II)

are a place to start with your school.

Good luck to you and your boy!

Sara

[Townya Mayers]

My son is 9 years old and in the fourth grade. His handwriting is very sloppy. He writes mostly in all caps and continues to write several letters and numbers backwards. The first time I heard of disgraphia was last year through his school when they talked about testing him BUT, said they couldnt until fourth grade. Now that he is in fourth grade they are telling me that there is no such test. I sit over him at home and make him fix his reversed letters and number as he writes them and in class he has a number and alphabet chart on his desk (as does every other student) that he happily refers to in order to fix the reversed letters. This does not, however, help with the all caps and sloppy writing. I am afraid this s going to start being an issue on his grades now that they are working on editing and he has to write stories on the new staar test. I am at a loss for what to do with this...

[Pwells80]

Dysgraphia has cause me endless difficulty and pain as a result of failed classes and missed papers. Thank you for posting this article.

I am all too familiar with the "try harder" and "work harder" approaches. They don't work.

I must labor mightily to make my handwriting clear and neat and legible.

My life (I say this without exaggeration at all) might have been different were it not for this insidious problem.

[uggs outlet]

I know this is really boring and you are skipping to the next comment, but I just wanted to throw you a big thanks - you cleared up some things for me!

[zhang]

Love this new feature! love this page.

[Sara Sanders Gardner]

It really depends completely on the college; they would be the ones to ask. My sons college really didnt require much in the way of documentation - they used his h.s. IEP and were more than happy to provide accommodations. Every college is different, though. Call or email the Disability Services office at your sons college and ask specifically. 

[Michele]

My son has had an IEP or a 504 designation all throughout MS & HS. Now that he is accepted to college, the School District's Spec Ed director decided updated testing will hurt him and prevent him from getting accommodations. HS, she says, accept a significant discrepancy as a need for accommodations. Colleges will not. Since his last Beery VMI was in the normal range it won't matter that it was 30-40 points below his Wechsler scores.
What kind of diagnostic test is there for dysgraphia that colleges will accept?

it is good that people learn about issues like this, since a few days since our society has had a big turn, so it is necessary to learn techniques such life, thanks for sharing the post!

[Sara Sanders Gardner]

Thanks for asking - I havent decided to stop this blog, but I have been having issues lately getting things done. Kind of a down time - however, things are looking better and I hope to be back sometime soon. 

[Matthew Smith]

Hi there,

Just wondering what's happened to you lately? Have you decided to stop this blog?

[Becca]

This was a very interesting article. As mentioned, most will struggle with some professionals who do not understand the full scope of the disorder, although the fact that the disorder is more openly recognised is a giant leap for me. Having this disorder, I had constantly been ridiculed by peers and teachers as a sloppy, "unlady-like", and lazy student. Yet I was top in the class. The pain writing caused while creating essays for examinations was so great that bruises were left all over my hands and the pain radiated into my shoulder.
Teachers would send me home with extra booklets (given normally to kindergarten students) to fix my poor writing. Not one person, not even my parents, would believe that I spent hours trying so hard to make the letters neat and pretty.
It is still frustrating today as professors and colleagues in graduate school equate messy writing to low intelligence. Therefore I resort to typing everything so that I do not seem incompetent.
I am glad at least that some professionals are now acknowledging and testing for this disorder, and hopefully it will be given enough attention so that many would recognise the symptoms.

[Sara Sanders Gardner]

This is a perfect example of how professionals still dont quite get dysgraphia. Note-taking may or may not be a problem for your son, though, depending on his verbal processing ability, etc. My son has no problem taking notes: only HE has to read them, after all. 

Sara

[Christine]

I remember a meeting we had where the teacher produced a paper that she had our son write, as "evidence" that he could write neatly "if he tried". I asked her how they had produced it; she replied that he had copied a passage from a book. OK, what happens when he is having to *think* and *compose the text in his head* rather than copying??? Something suffers -- either he thinks about what he is trying to say, or he thinks about writing it neatly. If he tries to do both it takes FOREVER. And the OT didn't help, because she proclaimed his fine motor skills to be WNL. He is in 7th grade and they still don't require them to take much in the way of notes --- not sure what will happen when notetaking is required....