I'm not sure how I feel about this! But fwiw, thought maybe someone else might identify:
DS12 is in 6th grade, in middle school, in a new school. Overall, things are going *great* compared to elementary school. He's finally transitioned to keyboarding almost everything and has a very supportive school staff. The last two years in his previous elementary school the school staff spent a ton of time arguing he didn't have a handwriting challenge in spite of very clear private eval documentation followed by very obvious public school IEP eligibility documentation and a ton of clear evidence in the classroom and homework throughout his school years.
He participated in learning cursive in 4th grade with the rest of his class, and in practicing cursive 4x/week in 5th grade along with the rest of his class. His 5th grade teacher and the SPED teacher at school would often point out to us that his very neat-looking legible cursive was clearly proof that he didn't have dysgraphia (even though his cursive hw speed was measured at three years behind grade level and the only cursive he could really produce happened when he was copying, not when he had to think and write at the same time).
Anyway, this year he's been keyboarding almost everything. I hadn't even noticed that when he has been using handwriting for brief-response answers it's been printing, and the only time he uses cursive is when he signs his name. I didn't think anything about any of that.
Yesterday his Spanish class made valentines for their parents, and ds wanted to sign his in cursive. The kids all have Spanish names in Spanish class. DS couldn't figure out how to write his Spanish name in cursive - he'd completely forgotten how to write anything in cursive, other than how to sign his non-Spanish usual name. All of that two years of practice just disappeared after not using it for less than one school year.
So part of me wonders - should we have had him practice his cursive (on top of everything else - picture me banging my head against the virtual wall!)... or really, does it matter? I can't think of one danged reason he needs to know how to write in cursive, he says he can read it a-ok and I feel certain he can - but then a little part of me starts wondering, is he going to run into some silly situation somewhere in the future where he's going to be told to write something in cursive and won't have a clue... yet I realize even if that did ever happen, he'll be ok with it - he didn't really care that he couldn't yesterday, just mentioned it in passing in case I wondered why he printed his signature... I guess it's just one of those things - you worry so much about how to get everything together and working for your kids when they are little and first diagnosed, then things start humming along and going well and you sort of forget they have a disability, then you have this odd little reminder just drop in and sorta hit you on the head....
polarbear
