Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Homeschool, dysgraphia...advice needed

Yes of course you can drop writing for a while. Plenty of people take 6 months off to settle - read heaps of books, play games, go on field trips. You could also try something like 'writing with ease' which only does copywork (then dictation) and oral narration and summation in the first few levels. That separates thinking what to write from writing until he feels more confident.

Thanks, puffin. I've taken writing pretty much out of the equation for now. He is still doing the writing prompts but I'm the scribe. He writes great sentences without a pencil in his hand! I think we'll stick with this for a while while we adjust to homeschooling.

Dubsyd, I'm not sure what age dysgraphia can be diagnosed. My DS had just turned 7 when we got the diagnosis. As I've learned, dysgraphia has many layers. For DS7, he simply does not have the skills to write as well as he thinks-he cannot form the letters properly, spell words correctly and ceases to use basic punctuation. This difficulty led to serious resistance and frustration. DS wanted to go a good job but he couldn't.

That's just my personal experience. Polarbear and aeh will have a wealth of knowledge for you.

Qualifier here - I'm not a professional, just a parent, so everything I'm about to say is just my impression based on our ds' experience

There are several different things that you look at when diagnosing dysgraphia. It can be tough to make a call "is it or isn't it" dysgraphia when a child is just learning how to write and through those early ages of 4-7 years old, because, just like with reading, children's fine motor skills, writing skills etc, develop at different times. OTOH, if you're careful and you're looking and you really think things through, I think that you can get a good idea re whether or not your child might be dysgraphic when they are in that age range - the key is looking at more than just reversed letters, sloppy handwriting because that is all developmentally possible at that stage.

These are the things that we saw in our ds at 6 that would have been considered signs of dysgraphia if he'd been evaluated at that age:

Crumply messy paper - uneven pencil pressure
Held his wrist and elbow when writing
Odd pencil grip
Total refusal to do homework that we knew he knew how to do (in his head)
Dip in processing speed relative to other subtests on his first IQ test (test was for
entry into a school district gifted program)
Letter reversals didn't lessen or stop as he progressed in school

Once a student reaches third grade or gaps in handwriting appearance etc are a lot more obvious when compared to peers - but there's no way you want to wait until 3rd grade if you suspect dysgraphia because of the double-whammy of having a child miss out on opportunities to learn how to work around dysgrpahia as well as the years of frustration prior to diagnosis that can really lead to blows to a child's self-esteem.

At 6, if you had a professional administer an ability/achievement test combo that included timed tasks such as processing speed on WISC and fluency tests on the achievement battery, and had them review handwriting samples as well as observe him while writing, you'd probably be able to rule dysgraphia either in or out. To get the actual diagnosis you'd want just a bit more testing to determine if it's fine-motor related or visual in origin.

If you're waiting for testing, I'd recommend gathering examples of his writing, and observing how he sits/holds himself when writing. Try to teach him a proper pencil grip and see if it sticks or makes a difference. Have him write the alphabet out (upper and lower case) and time him to see how long it takes - then calculate letters per minute, and compare it to typical letters per minute measures for 6 year olds (you can find ranges by googling). Also look to see how many letters he's reversed, skipped, not written in caps, formed incorrectly etc.

Hope that makes sense!

polarbear

Thanks NikiHarp and Polarbear! There is a lot of useful info in your post Polarbear. I will definitely try some of your suggestions. DS is really resisting all writing practice at the moment. I think this will be a stressful year because of it, but hopefully we can make some progress.

We have had some assessments done. At age 4.5 DS took the wppsi and his processing speed was 40 points lower than his verbal. At 5.5 he did woodcock Johnson cog and ach tests. His achievement scores we all consistent with iq, but many of his category scores on the cog were uninterpretable due to big variations in subtlest scores. The psych commented that his writing was below age expectations, but that he was too young to qualify for dysgraphia. I was okay with that at the time, but that was before we knew he would be skipping into year 2 this year. Ahhh the joys of asynchronous development, his handwriting will be below average for his year 1 age level, and he will be in year 2. But I am glad they are taking a strengths based approach, as I don't think being academically under stimulated in the year 1 classroom and struggling with his writing would have been a better situation. I think I need to just get ready for a bumpy road.

Also DS does have some visual problems with tracking and converging that we are working on, he has prism glass that seem to help in the mean time, so it might be entirely visual or a combination of things.