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I was wondering if anyone on here has gone through the Assistive Technology avenue with their child? My DS8 has Dyspraxia and has been getting OT services for quite some time in the public schools - handwriting is really, really hard for him and I think the thing that is the most frustrating for him is that his brain works at mach 10 and there is no way possible that his hands/writing can even come close to keeping up with what is in his head. This year we were rezoned to a new school and he had to switch from his old OT to someone new. This OT just does not understand dyspraxia or my son and her sessions consist of sitting and writing sentences and nothing else. For a child who really hates writing, this is not exactly the best avenue. He has been going to OT since he was 3 and he has never had an issue in the past with any of his therapists. He has been butting heads with the OT and has started refusing to do the writing at all now. She is upset with him and stated that she is going to request that he be dropped to consultant basis only instead of his normal one OT session a week. How in the world can you drop a child who very clearly has a massive issue and needs help learning ways to adapt to help writing instead of forcing him to sit and write lines.

I found out through his Speech teacher that we can request an assistive technology assessment to see if he qualifies for any help with his handwriting problems. I never knew this was available and am not quite sure what to ask for or even what to expect. Anyone been through the process?

Belle,
How awful!

My son sounds very similar to yours, but he never got any handwriting help from his private OT or from the school OT.

I would request the Ass tech ass but in case that doesn't pan out, this is what I did.

At age 8 DS wanted a new game for his gameboy DS. I made 40 'scrolls' with 15 minutes tasks and but them in a small clear vase. Each curled up piece of paper had a 15 minute task that increased small motor strength/coordination. I sat with him for each task. Tasks included:
1) hand sewing bean bag pillows.
2) 15 minutes of Typing Instruction from Mavis Beacon CD-Rom
3) Drawing from Ed Emberly book
4) practicing making pretty letters from Handwriting without tears (did I mention how much I love their notebook paper?)
5) 15 minutes of Typing Instruction from Mavis Beacon CD-Rom
Yup - I stacked the deck with Mavis!

Here's what happened. by age 9 DS had learned to type properly with fingers in proper position on the keyboard. By age 10 he was able to type 100 wpm (with mistakes) with his head swiveling around like an owl to check out the goings on in the classroom. This turned out to be one of the major things that made him 'stand out' as special when the private school gave him his gradeskip. (I know!)

When he started at the private school I got them to agree to treat him 'as if' he had a writing disability and allow him to write everything longer than 1 paragraph with a laptop, which we provided. 2 years later I got the Handwriting without Tears's
'the print tool' and I told him I wanted to get a part time job helping other kids with their handwriting and would he be my beta tester. He got very interested in their tools and 'helped' me understand the intructions, and analyse his sample, and guess what? 6 months later there was an assignment in Science to learn to take notes, DS handwrote it and it was beautiful.

So it is possible to provide 'differentiated instruction' in handwriting to gived kids.

DS still mostly types, but at least now he as 'sloppy copy' handwriting and 'final copy' handwriting, something that the other kids had in 2nd grade, but not DS.

I hope that helps!
Grinity

Thanks guys SO much! I have just been frustrated with the whole thing. We don't push "writing" at home and with taking that pressure off, we have noticed that he actually writes more than when we were focusing on writing lessons/handwriting without tears program. He has shared that he gets upset because he has so much in his brain that he wants to write down and then he just gives up because he can't sit and write everything out like he sees it in his head.

We are specifically asking at his upcoming IEP end of the year review that he not be dropped to consultation status and our reasons why and that we would like a neutral 3rd party OT to please help with the AT assessment. I can't imagine his current OT being part of that process....she is so biased in her opinion of my child that it just would not be a fair assessment.