My son is diagnosed with a severe Disorder of Written Expression in addition to having motor dysgraphia (and AS), and he has no trouble reading, spelling, or doing other verbal tasks where written output is not required. Left to his own devices, he can sometimes produce incredible *typed* poems, songs, stories, and essays on topics of his own choosing and in his own time. He likes to draw. None of these things rule out a writing LD. He can respond verbally to essay prompts, but has a great deal of difficulty producing organized written output on a given topic on demand.

Some things that really helped him be able to perform at an adequate level for assigned writing situations (with the necessary accommodations of keyboarding and extended time ) were:

* explicit instruction in how to brainstorm and organize ideas, starting at the level of the sentence, and working up to the level of the paragraph and essay.

* reassurance that the very worst thing that could possibly happen as the result of a bad or mediocre essay completed within the assignment framework was still way better than the best things that could result from not turning one in at all, or from turning in one that didn't answer the assignment. This did a lot to decrease anxiety.

* practice with timed writing exercises, starting with topics that he cared about and was interested in, and moving gradually to topics that he had no interest in.

Initially, these were brainstorming-only exercises: finding a main idea and three or four supporting details in 5 minutes or 10 minutes, and writing down a keyword for each in an outline format. This exercise can be used at all levels of organization - sentence, paragraph, and essay. Once he was fluent with brainstorming ideas and organizing them into a hierarchical structure, we worked on expanding them into fleshed-out writing, following the outline he'd generated.

The writing he generates this way isn't always his best work, but it gave him a toolkit that he can pull out when he absolutely has to write and inspiration doesn't strike.

The Purdue OWL is a great resource for developing writing skills, and it has lots of practical advice that we have found tremendously helpful.