Gifted Bulletin Board

Welcome to the Gifted Issues Discussion Forum.

We invite you to share your experiences and to post information about advocacy, research and other gifted education issues on this free public discussion forum.
CLICK HERE to Log In. Click here for the Board Rules.

Links


Learn about Davidson Academy Online - for profoundly gifted students living anywhere in the U.S. & Canada.

The Davidson Institute is a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting profoundly gifted students through the following programs:

  • Fellows Scholarship
  • Young Scholars
  • Davidson Academy
  • THINK Summer Institute

  • Subscribe to the Davidson Institute's eNews-Update Newsletter >

    Free Gifted Resources & Guides >

    Who's Online Now
    0 members (), 196 guests, and 25 robots.
    Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
    Newest Members
    streble, DeliciousPizza, prominentdigitiz, parentologyco, Smartlady60
    11,413 Registered Users
    March
    S M T W T F S
    1 2
    3 4 5 6 7 8 9
    10 11 12 13 14 15 16
    17 18 19 20 21 22 23
    24 25 26 27 28 29 30
    31
    Previous Thread
    Next Thread
    Print Thread
    Joined: Nov 2012
    Posts: 141
    C
    Member
    OP Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: Nov 2012
    Posts: 141
    DS9 has fine motor dysgraphia, with pain and fatigue historically a lesser problem than automaticity and speed, when writing by hand. We (parents & school) have been pushing him to type and his IEP includes typing and dictation/scribing accommodations, along with a prohibition on handwriting. We've tried multiple typing programs and lots of practice, but his typing speed remains stalled at under 15 WPM and he resists typing.

    Earlier this week he told me that his hands get just as tired typing as they do writing and that he wishes everyone would just 'give him what he needs and let him dictate'. I had thought of typing (facetiously, of course) as our Get Out Of Dysgraphia Free card and am now wondering if we have another challenge in play (DCD?) or if this is still dysgraphia and we have one less tool at our disposal.

    In his assessment there were some indications of DCD, but the psychologist and pediatrician were confident that dysgraphia was the only appropriate diagnosis.

    I am grateful for suggestions and thank you, in advance.

    Joined: Jun 2014
    Posts: 226
    C
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: Jun 2014
    Posts: 226
    Has he had an OT evaluation? Our OT suggested DCD for our DS7. His printing is slower than average and I'm guessing his typing will be as well (although we haven't pushed it yet).

    Is there a reason that your DS can't use voice recognition? This was suggested for my DS by the school resource teacher. So far we haven't really given either typing or voice recognition a try - he's only in grade 1 and writing demands are not too much. But I imagine we'll need one or the other in future.

    Joined: Aug 2011
    Posts: 739
    P
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    P
    Joined: Aug 2011
    Posts: 739
    DD10 had the same complaint, which combined with visual perception issues making it difficult to find the right key, made typing harder to learn than I had hoped. I think voice-to-text is going to be the solution for her but Dragon hasn't been able to pick up her voice. Recently our AT consultant tried her out on a new iPad that allows her to incorporate both keyboarding and voice-to-text. She can now move between the 2, typing a word if it doesn't pick up her voice, and can also use text-to-voice to help her select the correct choice from the word prediction list. This is supposed to be available on iPad 3 and higher so she no longer needs Dragon. Her keyboarding skills are improving but very, very slowly.

    My DD has also decided that she wants to keep trying to write some by hand. Very surprising after all the years complaining about hand pain and being desperate to get out of it. We introduced cursive this year in case its easier for her than printing. This will never be her main means to communicate but as she recently pointed out there may be times that she doesn't have access to technology and wants to be able to write a note if necessary. She looked me straight in the eye and said "Mom you know you can't run away from your problems - right?"

    Joined: Apr 2014
    Posts: 4,047
    A
    aeh Offline
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    A
    Joined: Apr 2014
    Posts: 4,047
    We've also had some success with Google Read+Write, in our school.


    ...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...
    Joined: Nov 2012
    Posts: 141
    C
    Member
    OP Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: Nov 2012
    Posts: 141
    We had an OT involved at an earlier stage, with minimal improvement. Both the psychologist and pediatrician believe there is nothing to be gained/learned by going down that route again (we have a lot of confidence in both, so haven't questioned that conclusion). If this sounds like a DCD situation, we'd likely have to go back to one or both for a reassessment.

    DS9 is supposed to use Dragon at school, but that hasn't been happening. Both the iPad Dragon app and the iPad's own system have trouble accurately catching his voice. We are hoping the full Dragon program will work, but as the school year draws to a close it seems it will fall to me to figure that out!

    I haven't heard of Google Read+Write - thanks for the tip, aeh, I'll check it out.

    I'm torn between not wanting to torture him if typing really is exhausting and ensuring he has at least rudimentary skills with something that could really help him in the future. He can handwrite, when necessary, so that skill is sufficiently covered (I love your DD's attitude, Pemberley!), but typing seems too useful to give up on. I worry I'll join the ranks of those he sees as unsupportive if I continue to push it - he really needs me unequivocally in his corner right now. Our school year can't end soon enough!

    Joined: Sep 2011
    Posts: 3,363
    P
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    P
    Joined: Sep 2011
    Posts: 3,363
    A couple of thoughts for you CoastalMom - first thought is it could very well be DCD. My DCD ds has an even lower typing speed than your ds (and he's in high school). Keyboarding for him isn't *fast* but it's still much faster than handwriting is - so that's another way to look at handwriting vs keyboarding, rather than thinking of it in the sense of what keyboarding looks like for a nt student.

    The other thought is - is he trying to use touch typing? Most of the professionals we've worked with for our ds recommend adaptive typing - where you let the child figure out which fingers to use on which keys. I've heard that most kids end up using what looks like texting-typing (thumb and index fingers) and it can be quite fast. My ds stuck it out with touch-typing while he was using a laptop but has lapsed into a more adaptive typing methodology once he moved to the iPad, and seems to type faster now that he uses adaptive typing. Could be simply that he's older and has practiced more too.

    One other thought (I probably have more than a few lol!) - are you sure the pain is as insignificant as you think? With both my dysgraphic ds (painful wrists from handwriting plus fatigue from typing) and my dd with vision issues (severe double vision) I found out relatively late in the game that pain and discomfort weren't something that I was very aware of - they told me much less about it than I would have expected given the extent of it once I did find out. DS today still will have significant wrist pain and not say anything, he just assumes we all know his hands hurt. He definitely doesn't have a lot of stamina for typing, and we've been told by the OTs he's seen that's due to his DCD - but in spite of that, he's still better off typing than using handwriting.

    Skipping forward, if your ds wants to use dictation, I'd let him. Since he's in early elementary you should be able to request scribing for certain types of assignments, and you can scribe for him at home. You don't want to scribe forever, but you won't have to. He can continue to try to find a more efficient way to type, and he can also use audio recording. You can try voice-to-text too - it works a lot easier on the iPad than using Dragon used to on the laptop, so don't be necessarily scared off by reading reviews online that say it's not doable for a young child. It might not be, but otoh it might work fine.

    Can you share with us what signs you've seen that might be DCD-related, and why the pediatrician and psychologist thought it wasn't DCD?

    Best wishes,

    polarbear

    Joined: Oct 2014
    Posts: 675
    P
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    P
    Joined: Oct 2014
    Posts: 675
    Along with a lot of other people we know, we've found voice recognition works poorly on children's voices - too high-pitched, I think, to be interpreted properly. In our house, the distraction of the error rate more than wipes out any productivity gained on the words it correctly identifies. (I find myself counting the minutes until puberty....)

    That said, the newest iDevice voice recognition is seriously impressive on adult voices, and not hopeless on childrens'; it's worth trying. And in theory, Dragon is trainable and should improve if you put in a few hours of set-up; however, it is a notable investment of time and money if it doesn't work frown . Professionals keep telling me it works fine for kids, but I have yet to find anyone in real life who agrees.

    Pemberley's combo of text recognition and typing seems to be the best interim solution we've found as well.

    Joined: Nov 2012
    Posts: 141
    C
    Member
    OP Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: Nov 2012
    Posts: 141
    Very helpful comments, as always, thank you all.

    We have been focussed on touch typing, thinking it best to learn 'correctly' to avoid relearning in the future (my thinking is sometimes as rigid as his!). I'll try giving him official permission to experiment and see if he improves, or at least likes it more, freestyling. He's been using Panther Writer, lately, and much prefers it to conventional word processing programs so that's one vote for an adaptive approach. It's taken ages (close to 2 years) to get the school to use Panther (speaking of rigid...) and I'm hoping it will improve his opinion of typing.

    I haven't ask about pain recently, since he hasn't been writing much at all. It was such a surprise when he made the comment about typing tiring his hands that I didn't think to ask about pain. I'll follow up on that.

    As for DCD, he struggles with zippers, laces, buttons, cutting and was very late to ride a bike. He is slow and messy when he eats and slow to dress/change. He is not clumsy, though, runs well and now rides a bike and uses a scooter very well. The psychologist said he was borderline for DCD and handed off to the pediatrician, who concluded that the bike riding had overly weighted the analysis and that there wasn't enough, otherwise, for a DCD diagnosis.

    Our last go-round with OT showed such negligible improvement that I totally discounted it. Typing ergonomics did not occur to me. Back to the pediatrician for an OT recommendation to go along with the anxiety follow up. Some days I feel like the ringmaster of a specialist circus!


    Moderated by  M-Moderator 

    Link Copied to Clipboard
    Recent Posts
    Testing with accommodations
    by aeh - 03/27/24 01:58 PM
    Quotations that resonate with gifted people
    by indigo - 03/27/24 12:38 PM
    New, and you'd think I'd have a clue...
    by astronomama - 03/24/24 06:01 AM
    For those interested in astronomy, eclipses...
    by indigo - 03/23/24 06:11 PM
    Son 2e, wide discrepancy between CogAT-Terranova
    by astronomama - 03/23/24 07:21 AM
    Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5