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I keep meaning to post here but haven't had time. DS9 also has writing issues and we've had very similar experiences. We scribe a lot of his homework and the teacher occasionally scribes at school. We don't have a set formula for when we scribe and how much we make him write but whenever there is excessive frustration or when it is going to seriously impact his mark it generally gets scribed. There is only one teacher and only so much time so I'm sure his grades would be higher if he had a full time scribe but that isn't realistic at this point so it is what it is. We don't really emphasize grades and talk a lot about working through the challenge and doing his best. He knows he's smart, he knows we think he's smart and that writing to show what he knows is something that is going to be a struggle but that is ok. He will have a laptop this year in class which hopefully will also help.

I will say that math is generally where he has the biggest battles which is kind of ironic since he is a super, super mathy kid. "Show your answer in numbers, pictures and words" is usually a sign that there will be a battle. He doesn't get why you'd ever need to do all of that when the answer is clearly 42 (and I can't really blame him). In the end he wants A+'s in math. He couldn't care less about most of the other subjects but he cares about math so we've used that as a motivator. We tell him that if they want 3 ways, they are probably going to give 3 marks for it and he will never get all 3 marks if he only shows one way (or just the answer). This helped because it changed it from me (or the teacher) MAKING him do this to him earning his marks by jumping through their hoops (I tried to keep my cynicism to myself as long as I could but he eventually came to his own conclusions so we just went with it).

The other reason that math is more of a pain is they tiny, tiny spaces they give for answers. This really stresses him out. We've encouraged him to get extra paper and do his work there and hand it in with the worksheet if needed. If it is homework and there are 30 problems on the page and I know he can do it I just scribe and he has to tell me absolutely everything (like where to put the carry 1's, what to cross out for borrowing, etc so it looks like he didn't just do it in his head even though that is what he does and then adds the other stuff in after). This year they had government testing so part of this exercise was to train him on how to use a scribe with all of the rules that they have in place.

It is a fine line to walk. I do want him to develop his writing as much as possible but at the same time it can be the source of much frustration. Not sure there is a right answer but we just fumble along as well as we can.

As Blackcat mentioned, a student does *not* have to be working below grade level to qualify for an IEP, but the purpose of an IEP is to provide individualized instruction that is different from what she is receiving in her classroom - so you have to prove she needs "something different". I'm not sure from what you've posted that she actually would qualify for (or need) an IEP. It sounds like she needs *something* - a proper diagnosis, for one thing (as in, understanding what her challenge with handwriting is based in and how it impacts her academics), and she most likely will need either remediation or accommodations in the classroom and for homework - which should be based on the diagnosis. So... while she may not qualify for an IEP, I'm curious - has she been through an actual IEP eligibility process? (this would include ability vs achievement testing as well as potentially OT and SLP evals etc). OR have you simply been told that she wouldn't qualify and there was no actual evaluation?


This can happen so easily to children with some type of LD or challenge that impacts their school performance - when the teachers don't understand, when parents don't really know what's going on, and when the child of course has no idea why they can't write/etc like the other students in class. This is why it is *so* important to do two things - the two things a parent *can* control - first, do everything you can to figure out what the actual diagnosis is. It's incredibly helpful to a child to have an actual name for what's up and to understand what that diagnosis means, to realize it's not simply that they aren't good enough of that the people who are saying they are lazy are really and truly wrong, even though they are adults. The second very important thing to do as a parent is to advocate and let your child *see* that you are standing up for them, supporting them, advocating for them. Even if you get absolutely nowhere, your child sees that you are in their corner, standing up for them - which in turn gives them self-confidence that they can depend on you while at the same time showing them how to speak up and fight for themselves (which they will need to do later when they are older).


If it's dysgraphia and the only challenge is the physical act of handwriting, it's possible that a 504 plan can include everything your dd will need in terms of accommodations and remediation (learning to type, access to keyboarding, etc). OTOH, I still think it's really important to know for sure - is it dysgraphia? Is it something else? before you can have a good solid plan to proceed with knowing how to accommodate/etc properly. For example, if it's dysgraphia, the chances are good that handwriting will never become automatic and your dd will need to keyboard or use other means of communicating when "writing". In that scenario, you'd want to get her keyboarding asap, and only do very basic handwriting instruction. But what if it isn't dysgraphia, and she *does* have the ability to develop automaticity in her handwriting? Then you'd might want to pursue a one-time high-intensity handwriting program to get her writing neatly. What if the issue is posture or pencil grip etc and that's all it is? Then a few sessions of OT might be what's needed. It's really tough to know *what* to do if you don't fully understand *why* you are doing it (i.e., what's causing the symptoms).

The other reason a full eval might be useful at this point in time is - it's possible there's more to it than dysgraphia or a handwriting challenge. It sounds like there is an outside chance she's having difficulty with word retrieval or written expression (getting her thoughts out or organization of thoughts or something).


Exactly. We ran into this with our ds - he has an expressive language disorder but it was not obvious enough for us to realize it until he was in 4th grade. Partly because the work he was given in school didn't call for open-ended spontaneous writing, partly because he had dysgraphia so we thought the unwillingness to complete writing assignments etc was always due to dysgraphia.


Save the examples like this that you do at home - they will be useful in advocating at school.


I have to apologize - I tend to forget the details for each person's child when I reply to posts, so I'd forgotten your dd has a DCD diagnosis. Since she's got that diagnosis (so does my ds), I'd consider that's most likely the primary reason she has handwriting challenges, and I'm guessing she'll have difficulty developing automaticity of handwriting due to the DCD. You should absolutely be able to get a 504 that includes accommodations such as scribing and keyboarding based on the DCD diagnosis, as well as observations at school and at home.


My DCD ds does *not* use handwriting at all other than answers at school that require a few words or 1-2 sentences. When he was first diagnosed at the end of 2nd grade we were told to spend the summer teaching him handwriting as one last try at helping him achieve "what he was able to" and to then drop it - forever. We were also told he should start keyboarding right away, practice as much as he could, and in school we should scribe until he was able to keep up with keyboarding. There is one gotcha here - keyboarding is not fast for our ds (due to his DCD, whereas for many children who have dysgraphia but not a DCD diagnosis, keyboarding can become lightning fast). In spite of that, he is still faster keyboarding than with handwriting, and keyboarding results in much better grammar/ punctuation/etc.


I have never seen not using handwriting as "giving up". We live in a world where very few people actually use handwriting in their daily lives, so a kid who grows up keyboarding... isn't going to stand out at all as an adult, or even really all that much as a high school student. OTOH, a student who is forced to repeat something over and over that they aren't neurologically equipped to actually accomplish is at risk of developing low self-confidence as well as potentially wasting time that they could be spending developing their areas of strength or just learning something that is interesting and fun.

This all depends on the individual, of course, but fwiw - my ds was not excused from learning cursive writing in school - his whole class practiced for at least 10 minutes per day every single school day for the entire 4th and 5th grades. DS actually had relatively neat-looking cursive writing. Then he had summer vacation after 5th grade. When 6th grade started and an assignment was given out and the class was asked to write in cursive, ds could not remember how to make *any* letter in cursive other than writing his name. He remembered what the letters look like and he can easily read cursive, but he couldn't remember how to "draw" a letter - and that's the key. Neurotypical folks don't have to remember "how" to draw letters every time they make them. Imagine having to figure that out every time you write a letter. Would *you* want to focus on learning something that will never become automatic, or focus your study time on something more productive?

Hope that didn't sound preachy - wasn't intended that way at all!

polarbear

I'm not sure what the process is. School told us she didn't qualify. Here's what he have done:

She saw a private neuropsych as a young 4 (at request of preschool) who noted poor motor skills. Coding portion of the WPPSI was at 50%ile. Qualitative descriptions on Perdue Pegboard was low average for both hands, borderline for dominant hand, and average for left hand (at the time she seemed ambidextrous--or as my husband likes to say, ambimaldextrous). Neuropsych recommended OT and social skills, said she was quirky and slow but nothing wrong, IQ was high but would go down, don’t send her to prestigious private schools where everyone is encouraged to march to the beat of the same drum.

OT diagnosed as DCD, but DD did fine on most of the initial assessment she gave, including handwriting. The initial assessment was very short and casual.

A few weeks ago (week she turned 8) she saw a private neuropsych who specializes in gifted kids as part of us getting documentation to qualify for 504. At this point, only the WISC-V has been done. Psychologist is doing more testing this week and next week. I have not seen the results, but she ran some of the test numbers by me, just so I could tell the school where we're at and what she'll be recommending. I don't remember exact numbers, just that they seemed to match the 4yo ones but with higher verbal (she reads constantly) and lower (26th percentile!!) processing speed with a very low coding score. She said that the 99th percentile scores in most areas combined with 26th percentile processing speed was a big issue for her and she needed accommodations for disorder of written expression.

Is this the IEP eligibility process or is there something else? I don’t want to push for IEP if the school will give her everything she needs without one because we have a very good relationship and I don’t want to mess that up. A lot of the admin at the school like her and they want to help. I do not see her getting services. She was in EI as an infant for PT and never qualified for OT. There is something missing in these tests they do that doesn’t catch her problem. Her handwriting does not look bad unless she doesn’t know what she wants to write.

Thanks for all of your other words of wisdom. We do have her in intensive handwriting tutorials with a teacher from a special needs school. The big dysgraphia symptoms that I see in her are crossing her thumb over her fingers when she writes, tight grip, “drawing” letter strokes backwards (even though they look the way they should on the page), and the fact that she resists writing so much. She spells terribly when she's writing, but makes 100s on spelling tests in the advanced group using the same words! On spelling tests she misses punctuation in sentence dictation but she understands punctuation. She also does not draw. She says she can’t figure out how to draw the things she wants to draw. This has always been a HUGE behavior problem at school. They really don’t get it. I would say "inconsistent" is the way to describe her relationship with legible writing. My husband said that was his biggest problem too. Teachers would ask why he could do something one day and not another, and he didn't know why. He really didn't have an answer.

Husband is dysgraphic and was never supported in school (nice ivy league family, high achieving private school that his mother begged to keep him in). He received no support and was always seen by everyone, including his family as lazy, stubborn, and a waste of potential. His parents have passed away, but I think his brothers just see his issues as aesthetically unappealing. I see a real distaste for him in his family. He still struggles with not fully being able to recover from all that. No DCD label back then. He was diagnosed with "fine motor dysfunction." We are fixated on helping her through this because of all my husband went through. He is having a very hard time seeing her go through this. I think because he is reading about DCD for the first time. I can just see him getting angry and sad for himself (and sometimes relieved). And we know that once you get out of school, You. Can. Just. Type. The fact that you can be okay if you can just get out of school without having your sense of self ripped to shreds is what is most distressing for us. We just want to get her through this.

I am very thankful for the advice. We want to do things differently than his parents did. And she’s so academically inclined (he is too), that we want to make sure she doesn’t give up on school. I struggle with wondering how to tell a young child that there is a reason she has trouble with something without giving her an excuse to not try to overcome it.

The school can't tell you she doesn't qualify for anything unless they evaluate. We got the same line. I had outside OT/PT assessment results and gave them to the school, and they were shoved into a folder with no one even looking at the reports. I would do some research on what the names of all the disability categories are in your state (names may vary between states, but all states have to provide the same types of services), for instance see if the information is on your State's Department of Education website under "Special Education". I found the eligibility checklists for each special education category and I could see that DS would possibly qualify as either "Other Health Impairment" or "Physically Impaired". For the latter, he qualified by having a diagnosed physical/motor disability (DCD) and the results of observations showed that he is "slow" in the classroom and has problems completing work at the same rate as peers. He was the last to get in the classroom because he kept dropping things on the floor taking stuff out of his backpack, and then last to get his math worksheet (which was a mess in terms of handwriting) turned in and join the rest of the kids for "circle time". So the "educational impact" was demonstrated. Once a kid fits into a category, the school can do pretty much whatever they want for services (OT, adapted phy ed, speech, etc). Your DD may benefit by seeing a school OT, esp. if she gets help with things like letter formation, pencil grip, beginning keyboarding skills, etc. Is it worth a fight with the school just for that? I guess it depends on the attitude of the staff. It's not worth it to fight to get services from incomptent people who don't understand or see an issue. I prefer IEPs over 504s because with an IEP, they need to meet with you and have you sign off on things, document progress, etc. With a 504, it's harder to enforce and there's really no monitoring of progress. But I do think the most important thing is to have appropriate modifications/accommodations and if you can do that effectively with a 504, then that may be all she needs at this point.

If you want her to be considered for an IEP, I would put in a written request to the principal and/or the spec. ed director for the district, detailing what your concerns are. They need to respond within a certain amount of time and plan an evaluation that addresses the concerns. Even for a 504, there still needs to be some sort of eval process, but not as comprehensive as what you would get for a child to be considered for an IEP. If they know there is a disability, they really need to do a comprehensive eval under the "Child Find" mandate if you and/or teachers have any concerns. You shouldn't even have to request it. But not all districts/schools are up to speed. Our district seems to evaluate only when it's a blantatly obvious case of a child needing an IEP (which is illegal, but worth the risk for them if it saves them money/time).

Boy, does that ring true.

Yesterday, I took mine to the playground. A couple of kids she knew were there. At first I saw a lot of "come join us!" Then I heard one kid say "Go slower. It's [my daughter's name] turn." Then they just wandered away and she played by herself on the swings for a while. She just can't keep up.

DS9 is dysgraphic and the best thing we ever did for him was to entirely give up on handwriting at the start of grade 3. His pediatrician insisted on it because of DS's ever-increasing anxiety. That medical advice was more compelling for the school than the dysgraphia diagnosis and was what convinced DH (who had worried that we were giving up too soon). If I could go back in time I would have thrown in the writing towel in grade 2. A lot of emotional damage happened that year. He was already noticing the difference between his output and that of other children in grade 1 and the difference kept growing in grade 2. I think, and our experience with DS is, that once a child is capable of basic writing, there is no benefit past that point in continuing to practice/instruct writing.

There are a lot of similarities between my DS's early signs of dysgraphia and what you describe with your DD. DS didn't/wouldn't/couldn't draw, resisted writing, formed letters from the bottom (they looked just fine once finished), took an outlandish time to complete any written task, had written answers grade levels below his verbal answers, and held his pencil like it was an offensive weapon. Teachers thought he was lazy or inattentive because some days he could actually write things, but most days he couldn't. He went from loving school to hating it before we were able to get in front of the challenge and we still struggle with the fallout from that.

DS actually liked having a name and explanation for his challenge. It helped him to conceptualize it as brain wiring, rather than the wilful behaviour the school thought it saw. He hasn't used it as an excuse to not write, interestingly he writes at home to label the drawings he now does (they are very rudimentary drawings, but wonderful to see in the circumstances). I think it can be empowering for children with challenges to know what the challenge is, how it manifests, where it comes from and how to address it. DS can now relax about writing because he understands his own wiring and the unexpected result is that he writes more than he did before he was the one who got to decide when/if he writes. I'm not sure any of that makes sense, but in essence I'd say don't worry about your DD not trying to overcome it.

DS was visibly relieved that the reason he was having a hard time writing wasn't because he was "stupid" which was the conclusion he had come to as a 6 year old when the kids at school were easily writing and he wasn't. He actually tried more after we talked about it and about how it was going to be a more of a challenge for him than it was for many kids. I think it was freeing for it to become something that he could work on and that if he wasn't acing immediately it didn't take away from his self image as a smart kid.