CoastalMom - I am in the middle of a project this morning and don't have time to type out details, but fwiw, we had similar issues with our dysgraphic ds once we'd gotten him moved onto AT and able to get past the handwriting issues. In his case, he has an expressive language disorder related to written expression... and it just wasn't something we were able to "see" until we'd given him the accommodations to get past the roadblock caused by dysgraphia. A speech/language eval pinpointed what the issue was, and he's been working with an SLP for several years and has made good progress.
I don't know that your ds has the same type of issue, just wanted to throw it out there as a semi-similar experience
And... if you pm me I can tell you some of the tips that our SLP passed along to us to help ds get his thoughts out in writing. They are tips etc that can work for anyone, not only kids who have expressive language challenges
Our SLP has done a lot of trial-and-error with a scattering of different techniques to see what works for ds - you might want to try something similar. Everyone at school just wanted to pin graphic organizers all over ds' desk and glue them to his face (sorry for the sarcasm!) but he was lost even with the organizers.
There is also cool software that you might want to check out - they used to offer a free trail period. Kidspiration for early elementary, Inspiration for older kids. Kid/Inspiration allows you to brainstorm in a graphic-organizer mode where you can move thought bubbles arounnd etc, then once you like what you've got you can push a button and turn it into an outline which you can also easily tweak/move objects around and add info, and then when you're happy with that you've got a good starting place for writing paragraphs.
Best wishes,
polarbear
