But, all that was in handwriting and verbal. Yet, at that age, he was able to type long lists of things (types of rocks, types of fish) as well as some creative stories, including writing his own Magic School Bus book in 3rd grade. But couldn't do it on request.
When I pointed it out to the tester, she said that all kids with DWE can produce better in typing and the tests aren't normed that way so he is a typical DWE kid. Yet, I just didn't see him stuck on ideas the way I hear some kids are, or stuck on how to express an idea in writing (oral yes).
Some more rambling thoughts from our experience - *naming* a diagnosis seems to be tricky and variable (and I don't even want to think about what happens when DSM-V comes out lol!)... for instance, our ds was diagnosed with Disorder of Written Expression in his first neuropsych eval (at 7), but after working with his SLP for approximately one year he lost that diagnosis when he had a follow-up neuropsych eval prior to middle school. When I asked the neuropsych why he no longer had the diagnosis (yet was clearly still struggling with written expression) her answer was that he no longer fell below average on one of the WJ-III Achievement subtests (I think it was the test where you're given two pictures or two words and have to make a sentence from them (can't remember for sure exactly how the subtests worked). It made absolutel sense that his scores on that test had improved significantly, because that was one of the skills he'd been working on with his SLP for, um, about a year. He was still clearly a kid who struggled with written expression.
Our ds also appears to have random ups and downs in what he's able to produce with written expression - some types of written expression are easier than others. He can more easily list factual information and write scientific notes etc than he can come up with creative writing (although he has a very creative imagination). Give him an open-ended writing assignment with no guidance and aaarggh.... might as well just send him directly to a padded cell
polarbear
