My son's dysgraphia wasn't diagnosed until he was 11 and then we were told it was too late for occupational therapy. We tried to get help earlier but when he was tested at seven they told us his handwriting was normal. They should have listened to me. They should have tested him longer. That is when his problems appear. Because they didn't diagnose the dysgraphia they didn't look for physical reasons for his handwriting and fine motor issues. They didn't notice the hypermobile finger joints or listen to me when I told them about the hypotonia that he was born with. They just told us to use Handwriting without Tears and that did not fix the problems.
When my son was tested by an educational psychologist the month he turned seven he was at a 4th grade level for math after homeschooling for one year. The educational psychologist told me that he thought he could have scored higher if he hadn't refused to use pencil and paper. He learned most of what he knew by playing math games online.
His reading level tested higher than the math that but I think he would have scored even higher if they had let him start the reading test at a higher level. His eyes got tired faster than other kids. He quit reading when his eyes got tired. His spelling score was grade levels ahead but I know he would have tested even higher if he would have been allowed to give his answers verbally. He had to quit when his hands started hurting. The educational psychologist noticed the fatigue and said he needed to be tested over more than one session because of it.
When our insurance agreed to pay for testing at age 11 the neuropsychologist would only test him if it was done all in one day because that is just the way it was done and they would not change their rules. It was done through a university. The neuropsychologist tested him even though he was getting a migraine. She felt it wouldn't make that much difference in his scores and he still scored in the verbally gifted range but there were things that didn't make sense and I know from my experience with migraines that the migraine was the reason for some of it. I told her this and she didn't like that I was questioning her.
I remember when he was seven he wouldn't write anything down to figure out answers. When he did write, he would sometimes write 5s and 2s backwards which would cause him to end up with the wrong answer. He had trouble keeping columns straight. We tried graph paper and he hated it. I had to act as his scribe and we had to continue homeschooling. It was the only thing that worked for us.
Because he had so many problems writing he learned to combine steps so he could do as little writing as possible. He is 14 now and he uses IXL for extra practice in algebra. He is good at coming up with weird mental math ways of getting the answers. I only insist he figure out the answers the traditional way using a whiteboard and marker on a few of the problems and let him figure out ways to get the answer with as little writing as possible. He is only at grade level in math now because the writing in math was such a problem that he avoided it and the painful scoliosis brace he has to wear made it even harder for him to deal with any other issues. Last year he went three months without doing any math at all.
When he finally got the diagnosis of dysgraphia at age 11 we were told that it went along with his dyspraxia. The strange thing is that unlike a lot of kids with dyspraxia he isn't clumsy at all until he gets tired which happens faster for him than other kids. I noticed this when I watched him practicing dances in his musical theater class with other kids. The classes were two hours and he was fine for about 45 minutes and then he his fatigue would affect his performance. It was the same with handwriting and piano unless we broke it up throughout the day. He has low muscle tone and his top finger joints bend way back which causes difficulty in writing and in cutting with a knife, yet he taught himself to type and types about 60 wpm, can text very quickly on his iPhone, and had no trouble learning to take out his new contact lenses but has to do it with his left hand even though he is right handed. Actually, he seemed ambidextrous in kindergarten so we encouraged him to write only with his right hand. He often eats with his left hand.
I also remember that my son would sometimes mix capital and lower case letters when he was younger. I think it might have been because he couldn't practice writing as much as other kids without pain. He was not eligible for occupational therapy in kindergarten because he wasn't failing and this was a requirement for receiving OT where we live.
