Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Just diagnosed with Dysgraphia - now what?

My 10-year-old son was just diagnosed with dysgraphia. We'll be doing occupational therapy and vision therapy as he also has a convergence insufficiency.

The dysgraphia has not caused any major problems up to this point. He's been compensating for it quite nicely. I have always just figured him to be a lazy writer (poor kid). He's a straight-A student who's never struggled at school. However, he's in 4th grade, and this is when they start to write a lot more. I want to have accommodations in place for him before he reaches middle school.

So... I'm going to be having a 504 meeting at school, and I need to know what to ask for! I'm not anticipating any problems with the school. I have good relationships with all the administrators. But, I don't want to miss anything important. What would you recommend?

I don't know how 504s work, but our DD also has dysgraphia and one of the psychologists recommended that the school accommodate her by letting her use a keyboard when possible and allowing her to answer questions with short answers rather than complete sentences when possible. She also advised that we look into the use of dictation software for homework, although we could not get it to work for DD's voice at this point (there are other threads on that somewhere). Also I guess I would try to get your son extra time on tests especially if there are essay questions.

slf, I think the most important thing to do always, when thinking through what accommodations to ask for, is to look in detail at your child's functioning, where they struggle (if they struggle) with school work etc. You can start with a basic list of accommodations for dysgraphia (you can find this by googling), and it might be helpful to read through your district's policy manual for SPED (or whatever) to see what they list as "typical" accommodations (because these will be accommodations they most likely won't argue against). Also ask the professional who diagnosed your ds for their recommendations. Then look at what you know about your child, and what you think they need to be able to show their knowledge at school.

Our dysgraphic ds has the following accommodations (he's in middle school):

All written work may be completed on a word processor
Extended time on tests (classroom and state testing)
Can write answers in the answer book (rather than filling in bubble sheets)
Oral response on fluency tests (things like timed math facts tests)
Use of a word processor for essay questions on classroom and state testing

Sometimes you can add in instruction into a 504. If your ds doesn't already know how to type, I'd want him to start learning right away, but you might or might not want to ask for help on this through school (for instance, this is something kids can pick up at home, and if instruction at school meant he'd be missing something more important in class when he's pulled out, I wouldn't want to do it through school). You need to think through whether or not your ds has missed out on any writing skills development due to undiagnosed dysgraphia, and you might want to have him get instruction on those (this would probably be more in line with requesting an IEP... which you might want to consider). Dysgraphics spend so much time thinking about how to write the physical letters they don't have working memory to devote to thinking about puncuation/grammar/content... so my concern here is has your ds missed out on learning skills for written expression that the other kids are picking up on because he's been having to expend extra effort just to produce writing? If you have any concerns about this, I'd suggest you ask the school to administer the TOWL (Test of Written Language) - this is a very widely available and widely recognized test that shows where a student has gaps in written expression skills.

FWIW, our ds uses some software that is helpful - it's not specifically outlined in his official list of accommodations, but it might be worth checking into (word prediction, voice-to-text are two that our ds finds most useful). He also has software that allows him to graph and write formulas for math.

His official accommodations list uses the term "word processor" to be generic, but fwiw - over the years he's used an AlphaSmart, a laptop and now uses and iPad. It's been very important that the device he uses is portable (not a classroom computer sitting in a corner away from the teacher and other students). There are also issues to consider when using a laptop/etc - how to print, how to turn in assignments etc (our ds turns in his assignments via email most of the time).

That's all I can think of at the moment - if you have additional or specific questions, ask!

polarbear

My son has dysgraphia. We have not had a meeting about accommodations yet so I cannot comment on it. But, I will say that vision therapy has helped tremendously. In three weeks, it is like a completely different writer.

Polarbear has great advice! I will be following along because my son is being tested (seemingly quite extensively - so far over 4 hours) and I am preparing for a 'diagnosis' (school psych so I don;t think they can technically 'diagnose) of dysgraphia and/or dyslexia as well. I already have accomodations in my son's IEP for a writing disability (I used his Dx of hypotonia to get those but I think his issues of writing are more due to dysgraphia (perhpas dyslexia) than the hypotonia.

Copies of class and teacher notes, alternative assignments that are writing- or craft- heavy (posters, essays), additional time for test-taking, use of calculator for math, homework done on computer and emailed to teacher, dictation where needed, scribe for tests when needed. We've also found his map deciphering skills are next to nonexistent, but we've yet to find an accommodation that works for this.

Remembered another - we scan ds' worksheets into the computer so he can type out answers... sometimes the teachers are able to just give him the worksheets already on the computer.

Lisa, there is mapping software out there that we had recommended to us once... but I'd have to look up the name. We never bought it because it wasn't a challenge for our ds and he hasn't been required to do much mapping at school. I'll try to look it up later today if I have a chance!

polarbear

Yeah - it hasn't been a biggie for him either. And with Siri and GPS mapping, he does just fine except when it is a mapping project at school.

Polarbear - what program do you use to scan ds' worksheets into the computer so he can type out answers? I'd liek to do this but I am thinking putting in the text boxes, ect would be cumbersome/time-consuming... wondering how you do it?

My DD has dysgraphia as one of many labeled disabilities so it may be hard to decipher which would benefit a kid with just the one problem. She has a scribe, so is allowed to do all tests orally and do her "writing" verbally. This has been the most useful for her. She has extra time, option of extra credit, etc but hasn't needed it. (She's only in second grade.) The district finally completed an assistive technology evaluation and the evaluator recommends an iPad. The idea is to get her up to speed on keyboarding so that she can become more independent - keyboarding short answers and fill in the blank for the next few years with the hope of being fluent with voice-to-text by 6th grade. She suggests doing all work on the iPad so it can be emailed between home and school.

Other simple strategies are having her circle the correct answer on multiple choice rather than having her write the words. (Since it's only second grade her work is more simplistic than the 10 year old would be doing but I assume others will be reading this too.) Also in the lower grades it's common to have to divide lists of words into categories (i.e. noun/verb, liquid/gas, etc). For this she can either write "N" or "V" next to the word rather than copying it to a list or label each option "1" or "2" and have her just write the number of the correct category next to each one. She also only has to write the word being corrected in a sentence rather than copying the whole sentence over.

We just had a major battle over spelling tests. She was doing them orally and scoring 100% every week and then the teacher started having her write them herself. She would make mistakes like writing "a-r-n" for "ran". This was clearly a mistake related to her disability but she would still be marked wrong for it. This past weekend she had a total panic meltdown because she couldn't tell the difference between a "b" and a "d" while spelling the word "third" with cut-out scrabble type letters the spec ed teacher had sent home to work with. I sent a rather scathing email pointing out that if she can spell the words orally she knows how to spell them and it is unfair to expect her to work through additional disabilities (in her case dyslexia and dysgraphia) to write them herself. You will really have to monitor to see what your individual child's needs will be and adjust the accommodations as you see the need arise.