The difference between 504's and IEPs is that with an IEP, the child gets services. So in my daughter's case, instead of going to Spanish, she goes to a small group with a special ed teacher and that's where she gets assistance with her work, completes things that she didn't complete in class, and help with organizational skills. If the problem is purely handwriting, I think it would be reasonable to look at a 504 if you want him to be able to keyboard or have some sort of assistive technology. But if you want his handwriting actually remediated, he would need an IEP and either a special ed teacher or an occupational therapist would work on the issue. The problem is figuring out what category he can qualify in. Because he probably needs to either qualify as having disorder of written expression (which is more than just handwriting), or you would need some other sort of diagnosis, like in my daughter's case it is ADHD, in my son's case it is Developmental Coordination Disorder (although in his case I think it's actually more than that, I think he has a brain injury or malformation, we just have't been able to get an accurate diagnosis yet).
