Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Summer remediation for dysgraphic kid

I'm not sure if I am doing the right thing at all.

First the history:

My child is in her last week of the second grade.

She has DCD and is extremely physically disorganized. She was diagnosed with Disorder of Written Expression at the beginning of the school year, but school did not accept the diagnosis as they can't accept discrepancies as proof. (She was diagnosed based on WISC and WJIII discrepancies.)

She has handwriting problems!!! She also can't draw. At all. Pretty much all of her projects are draw something and write about it. Her teacher is lenient, but she's honestly not producing output that shows that she's learned much and it keeps her from contributing much in groups.

She gets some accommodations because they accepted ADHD, but we're not even sure she has that. She might very well have just big time handwriting avoidance and not a lot of other things to do at school since they spend so much time in reading and math and she already knows what they're teaching in those areas.

She's been in private handwriting tutoring for a year, and we've seen a lot of consistent progress over the year but not enough to express her thoughts in writing. As she grows, her thoughts grow. When I compare her composition to her classmates, she isn't the worst, but she is at the bottom. She is at the top in academic knowledge/nonwriting skills. When she's writing on lined paper, her handwriting is very neat--in fact she's made "E"s across the board in handwriting. I don't think anyone sees how difficult it is for her no matter how much I groan and moan. They see that she can do it when she tries. I watch her space with her fingers and erase every little line she doesn't like. To me those Es show a lot of hard work and determination, but everybody else sees the opposite.

She is weak in skills related to writing: punctuation, capitalization. She spells poorly when she writes but has a very easy time with spelling words. It's not that she doesn't know the rules. She just can't apply them. She has no confidence in composition and doesn't get much practice.

So, the question:

I need to help her get her skills up there because her handwriting problems keep her from learning what she needs to be learning in school.

This summer she has agreed to spend 30 minutes a day on learning to type and writing of some kind--and we'll do something fun to celebrate. I can't be sure, but I do feel like her writing problems are tied to the DCD and harbor this secret belief that if she just practices enough, writing will become more automatic.

Can anyone suggest a writing curriculum, resource or program that will help me teach her how to write (composition)?

Also, does anyone have a like child? Does it get better for kids with DCD-based handwriting problems over time if you just work really hard? Also, does the asynchrony between what a child can think and write contribute to handwriting problems? If so, does that get better as they get older?

I know typing will be okay once she can do it. But I also know you can't type on a lot of these tests and I just don't see them giving her a disorder of written expression diagnosis ever. She just works too hard. (They don't see "hard worker" all--they see work avoidance.)

Excellent advice from spaghetti on all counts. I couldn't agree more. It actually IS possible to completely avoid writing if necessary, and for some people, it's necessary. They can hand write or they can think, but they can't do both - and which one is actually important?

Given your comment above (warning: incoming amateur diagnosis!), it sounds like she may be dealing with dysgraphia as well as DCD. That is to say, the issue may not be just physical, but there may also be a cognitive processing deficit that keeps handwriting from becoming automatic. From what I have learned over the years, the fine motor deficits may perhaps be more amenable to remediation than the processing ones. The good news is, dysgraphic handwriting issues can simply be by-passed with typing and voice recognition.

Like spaghetti, I've spent years scribing, so my kids can get their actual thoughts and ideas out, and learn, and demonstrate their learning. In parallel, I'm getting them to learn to type and use voice recognition, and teaching them writing planning and organization. It's not a fun way to spend their leisure hours, but it's been essential to their survival. For quite different reasons, neither of my children can produce written output without these tools. Now (grades 4 and 6) they mostly write independently, but there's no way they could in grade 2. They need the tools, and they need the years to learn how to use the tools, and in the meantime, I needed to make sure those processing deficits don't destroy their mental health. You've seen yourself what happens when a child is working as hard as they possibly can, and keep getting told to "try harder". The damage over years can be huge, and hard to undo.

So like spaghetti suggests, be careful not to inadvertently perpetuate the negative views of herself she's likely built up, and the idea that she can do this if she only tries harder. Handwriting may never become automatic, and that's OK. As has been discussed on a couple threads lately, decouple the thinking from the mechanics. If you want to work on actual expression, let her do the thinking and creative parts with you scribing or recording. Deal with practice on the mechanics (handwriting, typing, voice recognition) as a separate and unrelated exercise. In early days, it may feel like you are doing too much for her, but she needs that back up until she can access those tools for herself.

Questions22, you've received excellent advice above! I'll add a few thoughts - my ds has DCD and dysgraphia, as well as an expressive language disorder that impacts written expression. When he first evaluated by a neuropsych at age 8, he also had a diagnosis of "Disorder of Written Expression", but fwiw, he lost that diagnosis three years later during a re-eval even though he was still struggling tremendously with putting his thoughts on paper. My understanding of the DOWE is that it was based on the discrepancy in his writing scores on the WJ achievement tests vs his ability scores on the WISC, which measure discrete tasks such as spelling rather than extended written expression, which is more often evaluated with the Test of Written Language (TOWL). My first suggestion is that you scribe for your dd (as spaghetti mentioned above) when working on writing assignments, and if, over time, you find that she's still struggling to put her thoughts into words (with handwriting removed from the equation), request that she be evaluated for an expressive language disorder by her school, or get her a private evaluation (this will be with a Speech Language Pathologist). If you find that the words flow once she's not having to use handwriting, then you don't need to even think about this step. One potential word of caution though - my ds was extremely verbal and could talk your ear off about many things. He couldn't, however, write in response to open-ended, abstract questions. So as you practice writing with your dd (you giving the prompts, structure, dd telling you what to write), try to include different types of writing, because she may be very capable in some areas and have a huge struggle in others.

I also have a question for you - when she was diagnosed with DCD and dysgraphia, did the evaluator give you any type of plan-forward, with advice on how to accommodate and remediate? You'll receive a lot of great advice here from those of us who've been through this with our own children, but we don't have the benefit of knowing your individual child. I found the roadmap given to us re what to attempt with our ds vs what to not bother with, as well as what to anticipate in the future, were very important in how we approached accommodation/remediation with our ds. I suspect you'll find, as we did, that some of the advice that's given out for students with dysgraphia-"only" diagnoses (no DCD) will not apply to your dd. The big difference there for our ds was typing speed - my ds, like spaghetti's ds, relies 100% on typing, but his typing is slow. Slow enough that if you didn't know he was dysgraphic you might look at him and think... um.... why is this kid typing, it's holding him back - when the reality is, his typing is the fastest it's going to be for him, and it's faster than handwriting not only because of the speed but because of the dysgraphic impact of lack of automaticity of handwriting. I so didn't explain that very well! I hope it makes a little bit of sense

I also see the impact of DCD on my ds in other movement functions, and it's impact in his schoolwork. I'd say that his dysgraphia is almost a non-issue at this point, in high school and having been 100% typing for a very long time. He still doesn't spell well when writing, even on the keyboard, but word-prediction and spell-check make most of his papers ok on spelling from the start, other than words such as their/there/they're etc. And capitalizing the word "i" etc. OTOH, his homework takes a long time. He simply moves slow. He moves slowly when he puts his clothes on, when he uses the knife to spread butter or jelly, when he buttons his shirts, when he puts on a jacket. Handwriting wasn't the only skill in which he lacks automaticity. DCD impacts each individual differently, so those may or may not be things that impact your dd, but they are things that are different than simply having dysgraphia, giving a kid a keyboard, and then finding that almost like magic the words flow. Hope that makes sense. And.. I hope it doesn't sound depressing, because it isn't, it's just different. One of my favorite "DCD memories" of my ds in early elementary was a morning when we were running late and I was trying to hurry him into school. He was 10 steps behind me and I was desperately trying to get him to speed up, so I begged him to "run!!!".. and ds, looking very much like he was walking and that was it, replied "I AM running!". I was exasperated at that point in time (before we knew of his DCD), but later on in his early years we realized that, for him, that was running. As I mentioned, he's in high school now. He is on the cross country team (our school district lets everyone participate in team sports), and he was the slowest runner on the team the first year. Really, really slow. But he ran, and he's still running. He runs against his own personal best each time, and he's improved so much. He's still in the slow pack, but he's no longer the slowest. And he's ok with that. He gets out there and he runs. Just mentioning all of that to let you know that although your dd will have some struggles now, she's going to be more than ok - she's going to soar


Before I practiced a lot of repetitive writing, I'd try to use this summer for *you* to learn what types of writing your dd is good at, and what types are more challenging. I'm sorry I'm in a bit of a rush so don't have time to give you details on that suggestion at the moment, but I can come back later with a few suggestions.

One thing I'll suggest now that you can google though is help with organizing - I think this software is still out there, if not, something similar might be very helpful: "Kidspiration" (it's the children's version of Inspiration) - it's an interactive graphic organizer. When my kids were little they offered a free trial version for something like 2 weeks. One big "take this with a grain of salt" warning about my suggestions though - when my ds was first diagnosed, the iPad hadn't come on the market yet! There are so many cool apps on the iPad, that the first thing you should probably do... deserves it's own paragraph lol.... here goes:

Research current AT options for dysgraphic elementary-aged students. You can do this online (like you're doing), but you might also be able to do some "on the ground" research where you live. I was able to find a disability services office in our city that helps people find AT solutions (I found them listed on the wrightslaw yellow pages). We were able to get advice on various solutions for keyboarding, word prediction software, etc then picked and chose what made sense to try for our ds.


Definitely don't forget about the fun, and also don't forget about focusing on things your dd enjoys in terms of academics (not necessarily during the summer!)... it's just tough in elementary school and particularly when first diagnosed, for children with challenges such as dysgraphia to find time to be "just kids". It might continue to be tough too. As I mentioned, it takes a long time for my ds to finish his classwork and homework, and this hasn't changed over the years. He's doing very well in a great (and competitive) high school program, but he spends so much of his time on schoolwork, even with accommodations in place. It's really important not to let the "work" take over a child's life. (or your life ) I often find we forget as parents how precious this time with our kids is while they are young - while we're in the midst of it. It goes by so quickly! Having spent the time with my ds helping scaffold and support him through his early challenges helped us forge a bond between us that is rock-solid and really wonderful, but I am also, tbh, envious of the parents who didn't have to work through that, who were able to actually play with their kids after school and not have to spend hours working to get through a challenge.


From everything I understand (and I'm not a professional, just a parent, so definitely weigh what I have to say with that in mind )... but from what I understand, the lack of ability to develop automaticity is part and parcel of DCD.

I'll also add that my ds' handwriting did get "better" with practice. "Better" means he learned how to form letters properly, and he learned how to write without his pencil pressure ripping up his paper. When he learned cursive with his class in school, his teacher was always praising his handwriting, noting how nice it looked compared to many of the children in class (and claiming it was proof he didn't have a handwriting challenge). But there were so many things he never gained with handwriting - the obvious things when he was younger were that his handwriting was very slow compared to peers, his spelling was compromised when using handwriting, his punctuation was off, he mixed up words or left out words, copying wasn't accurate, etc. By the time he was in middle school he'd make comments such as "I like writing numbers better than letters because there are only 10 numbers to memorize how to write instead of 26 letters". After studying cursive in elementary school for two years along with his class, and having developed that "beautiful script" that his teacher thought was proof he didn't have dysgraphia, he forgot how to write cursive all together over the summer before 6th grade. Today, in high school, when he has to sign his name on a form he practices writing it on a different piece of paper first, to be sure he writes it correctly. His name. He does write short notes etc using handwriting in school on occasion... and neither he nor I can always read what he's written.

So - just to put it in perspective - get some professional advice re what your dd can realistically expect to gain with handwriting (long term), and then be sure not to put more effort into it than is truly beneficial - *for her*. You don't want to have her struggle with tons of time learning something that is frustrating and isn't going to stick.


Work on handwriting didn't really stick with my ds (as I mentioned above), but work on written expression *did*. It took a long time and a ton of scaffolding from me and support, but I don't regret one minute of all the long hours we put into remediating written expression. The first key to that, however, was taking handwriting completely out of the written expression work.


It can... but part of what you can do this summer (and going forward) as you practice with different types of writing etc is to talk to your dd, ask her what's going on in her brain etc as she's writing, and that will help you tease out if what you're seeing is asynchrony or something different. I"ll caution you that in the early years, it was easy for me to think ds was having difficulty with academic tasks because he was so danged smart... when really.. yes, he was danged smart.. but he also had a learning challenge.


*EVERYTHING* (except the handwriting lol!) got better for my ds as he got older

My last piece of advice for your summer (or start now if your school is still in session): put together a request for accommodations at school. Does your dd have an IEP or a 504 plan? She'll need one if she doesn't - sometimes in early elementary you can get by without one because a teacher will let your dd use accommodations without one, but even if all the teachers you ever have in elementary school are those amazing teachers who recognize and accommodate, at some point you're most likely going to run into either a teacher or a situation where your dd is going to be told she can't use a keyboard or can't have some other accommodation she might need in the classroom. It's first and foremost a good idea for you to think through, research, and help her test different accommodations (think of it as planning for life, not for school alone), and then be sure she has access to those accommodations at school. Keep in mind that the accommodations she needs and uses will change over time. And keep in mind that in addition to taking care of your child's needs now as you advocate for these things, you're teaching her that she has a right to use accommodations, she's learning that that is all they are - something she uses, not something that makes her different, and you're teaching her how to someday advocate for herself. Those are *invaluable* life lessons for any child

Best wishes,

polarbear

For those of you who worked on typing over the summer do you have apps or programs to recommend?

DD writes *all the time* - scripts, stories, songs, even started a book... - but has forsaken voice to text. She spent all last summer typing a script which ended up only about 3 pages long. All. Summer. We consulted with the AT specialist and bought her an iPad figuring it would be easier for her than typing on the desk top computer we bought her a few years ago. I asked (actually had to half plead half order) her to try writing with voice to text. She wrote as much in 20 minutes as it had taken all summer to type and began using it regularly. A couple months later we went away for the weekend and she couldn't get voice to text to work so had to go back to typing. Turns out the AT specialist told us to get the wrong configuration and DD's voice to text, which had worked so well in school and at home, didn't work when she wasn't hooked up to wifi. Now we can't get her to go back to using it. She had a meltdown when I asked her to *please* use voice to text so I can get an idea of how it works for her, what the roadblocks may be, how it compares to her typing output, etc. She is angry that "everyone" tries to make her use voice to text and seems to be implying that she likes the process of typing better than using voice to text - like maybe her ideas come easier. So I told her if she is going to insist on typing we are going to spend the summer getting her up to speed so she can actually rely on it. DD rarely has these meltdowns and I am not happy about it...

So what program or app should I have her use if we are going work on improving her speed over the summer?

(BTW DD has it all - dysgraphia, dyslexia, developmental dyspraxia (aka DCD), dysarthria (speech issues), math disability, etc. My goal for several years has been to get her to encode well enough for word prediction to guess what word she means and decode well enough to pick the right word from the list. She uses CoWriter so she can go back and forth between keyboarding and voice to text if she has difficulty getting it to recognize a word and can use text to voice to read it back to her or help select from a word prediction list.)

Wow! First of all thank you all for your really helpful thoughts. My daughter works hard and I work hard with her and it's really depressing that people outside her family don't just not see that, they actually see the opposite--and it is equally depressing that all the work we do actually takes her further away from being able to receive help and understanding at school.

I don't know anyone who understands, and being able to hear from other people who have been there...I can't even begin to tell you how much I appreciate it.


I think the "he" is meant for us, which would be "she," right? I didn't quite say it right. She had the typical WISC issue. 99%ile performance and verbal, very low processing speed (I think is was 16 or 18%ile and non-problematic working memory. With WJIII, I don't remember all the scores. They weren't all 99%ile but every non-fluency score that wasn't writing based was high 90s. Even the writing non-fluency test was like 95%ile but I think the fluency test on that one was something like 12%ile. The fluency scores across the board were low. Reading fluency wasn't bad, but it wasn't great and she's been officially tested at 4 years above grade level, so that says something. She is slow in life in general--and thoughtful--she doesn't rush to answer questions and sounds very much like your child, Polar Bear. She also has a difficult time getting words out of her mouth. Not terribly difficult, but it takes her a longer time to get things out than most kids.

I'd like to know more about the TOWL. Does it test full paragraphs or just short sentences? Also, what tests for expressive language?

Also, just an interesting incident to relay. My daughter is definitely on her own team when it comes to working to make things better for herself. We've been working together to deal with things for years now. So I read your messages with her and we talked about them.

We talked about how it felt to try hard and then have someone tell you that they "just want you to try." And that led to the idea of maybe just not trying so hard when it comes to drawing that she has no energy left for other things. That maybe when a teacher told her to just try, she should tell herself NOT to try.

The conversation went something like this:

Mom: Yeah, so that way you conserve your energy.

Daughter: Like when my teacher asked me if I wanted to try drawing flags for my flag project, I said no and she said that was okay, and that made things easier. So when teachers tell me to draw, I should just say "no."

Mom: Well, not exactly, that would probably make some teachers mad because they don't really understand what's going on. I was thinking that when a teacher told you to "just try" you could tell yourself not to try, and see what happens. Like the flag. I'll tell you that I just want you to try drawing a flag, you tell yourself not to try very hard and just draw me a flag.

Daughter: Ok.

[She draws a completely non-award winning but definitely flag looking flag.]

Mom: Did that stress you out or make you tired?

Daughter: No. I didn't try.

Mom: Okay good. Now let's not try something else.

Daughter: Like a boat? I know, you can tell me to draw a boat and instead of trying to draw a 3D pirate ship with four masts, I just wont't try to do that.

Mom: Exactly, [child's name] I just want you to try to draw a boat.

[In third person, she tells herself not to try to draw a boat and draws a perfectly fine roundish object with a sail that looks like a boat.]

So then she didn't try to draw a monster and she didn't try to draw a princess, and while neither her princess nor her monster is going to be hung up on the wall and admired from afar, they were both examples of what teachers want when they tell a kid who can't draw to "just try."

So that was interesting.

Anyway, we both thank you guys for taking the time to share your experiences.

No. In her life we have now used two neuropsychologists. The first was when she was 4. He suggested we see an OT and called her "almost clinically slow," though he did not write that in the report. The OT gave us the DCD diagnosis, and everything about it completely fits. Everything. Then we went to the second neuropsychologist to get testing so she could get a 504. That neuropsychologist accepted the OTs findings, but didn't focus on that.

In our experience so far, it has felt like OTs "do" DCD and neuropsychs "do" pen and paper testing and they never quite connect with each other. It's like the two puzzle pieces never get connected by the professionals. The school is giving her dysgraphia accommodations under an ADHD diagnosis. But so far they aren't really working. The tech is difficult for her and isn't supported. Her teacher is understanding and lenient on grading (checks for understanding verbally, doesn't make her draw to receive full credit on projects), but it doesn't solve the problem that if she can't write, she's missing out on things she should be learning. I am keeping a list of things to ask for next year.