In dysgraphia, the ladder might look like: copying letters>copying words>copying sentences>generating letters>generating words>generating sentences>generating paragraphs+
Sorry to ask a somewhat OT question, but I'm curious about how this might relate to a child who has dysgraphia (and developmental coordination disorder) who also has difficulty with expressive language (written and verbal). When DS is tasked with a writing assignment and is completely stuck, he says he "has nothing" in his head re ideas, and the problem isn't getting the ideas out of his head, the problem is there is nothing to "get out". Is it possible that the knowledge is there, or the knowledge required to generate the ideas, but the steps leading up to it are so overwhelming (or undone) that the child just isn't able to access the ideas?
I'm not sure if that made sense. DS does much better with written (and verbal) expression when he is dealing with facts that he obviously knows. Or when he's just totally lost in thinking through some interesting scientific challenge/problem etc. But give him an open-ended or non-science-related prompt and he's lost.
Even discussing the results of a science experiment - if he has to write a lab report, it's minimal and his conclusions are not terribly deep. But if he did the same experiment without having to write a report, just did it for the experience to see what happened, he can draw some pretty amazing conclusions.
Sorry, didn't mean to go off-topic, just always trying to figure out what's up with our kids who are so challenged with expressing their thoughts
polarbear
