Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Disgraphia??? HELP!!!

Okay, I guess I need to start my own thread rather than hi-jacking perplexed 's thread...

If any of you remember a year ago I was fretting over my then DD17 and her writing issues (she desperately wanted to go to a certain college, but despite articulating beautifully all of the things that she would say in her application essay, months went by with no essay forthcoming. At that point I finally realized there had been a pattern in her previous school failures that involved failure to produce written work. Until that point, I had believed that my DD's issues at school were related to a combination of lack of challenge and an unwillingness to do busywork). That revelation led me to this forum, which led me to get a Psycho-educational evaluation which resulted in a diagnosis of ADD inattentive, PDD-NOS and situational depression.

Fast forward, my DD pulled the application essays together in one siting last December, was accepted to her dream college in January, was diagnosed in February and put on ADD meds (which she said really helped with her thinking), and now here we are 2 weeks til the end of her first semester and...TWO MISSING writing assignments which, if not produced by the last day, will prevent her from returning for the spring! AAAAHHAHAHHHHHHHHHRRRRGGGGGGG!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo!

Okay, so now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this has nothing to do with lack of interest or desire. She LOVES the school, has real friends and true peers for the first time ever, the sparkle of life and joy has returned to her eyes and she is really, really happy for the first time in years....

So what is going on? And more importantly how do I stop this slow motion train wreck? She has 2 weeks to write two papers...I see a 50% chance of her pulling it out of the bag on her own like she did last year with the application essays, but it seems like the only way she can write is if her entire essay is so fixed in her head that she can produce it on paper without having to think about the substance while working on the form. I thought the ADD meds were supposed to make that happen more easily but... not so much :-(

I know the school is already working with her by giving her til the end of the semester to turn in the missing work, but I think they see it as purely a matter of will and the maturity to ask for help (and by help, they are looking at it purely as writer's block and the help offered is geared to just that).

I have been reading about dislexia and disgraphia and so many of these traits resonate: Even at 18, my DD still can not tell left from right, she has huge trouble tying her shoes, can not hold her pencil without a queer death grip, has no sense of spacing letters and words on a handwritten page, types reasonably quickly - but with so many errors and correcting every other word as she goes so she might as well type very slowly, she can articulate beautifully but seems to have extreme difficulty getting those ideas onto paper. She will not ask for or accept help and it seems she would rather fail and lose everything than turn something in that she feels is inferior or not up to par with what she has in her head.

After reading all of this, I contacted the diagnostician and asked if she felt that disgraphia and dislexia had been ruled out and she said she did not see anything that would have led her to think of dislexia/disgraphia. I specifically reminded her of the fact that my dd froze up and started shaking when it came to the writing portion of the test and she said it was just anxiety. I asked about the pencil grip and she seemed to think that was irrelevant.

I guess, I don't care so much about an official diagnosis at this point as finding the correct root of and the best solution to the problem. Although maybe it would help (if God forbid the need arises) with petitioning the school to let her finish the missing essays over the break and return for spring, if she were to get a new diagnosis that would show that it this is not a matter of poor work ethic or lack of will and more importantly would show that we are working on a workable solution going forward.

so far I have purchased a little recorder so my DD could catch her thoughts on the fly and save them, and I bought Dragon II naturally speaking (which I think should be the solution, but she got so frustrated trying to set it up last summer that it never went anywhere. I will work with her to try getting it set up again when she gets home). I also offered to pay someone to be her personal scribe - interview her and type up her ideas and then let her polish them off, I think this would be reasonable accommodation, but I am not there to find this scribe and I don't see her having the guts or humility to approach someone for the job.

Any ideas? Help, prayers and sympathy are most welcome!!! Anyone on her live in MD and want to be a scribe :-)?

As a mom with a daughter in college who was recently diagnosed with ADHD and with a midschooler with dysgraphia, I think you're right that the most pressing issue isn't the diagnosis but finding work-arounds and accommodations to help your daughter succeed. The diagnosis can come later when she's home for winter break or summer.

Since she can articulate what she wants to say but has anxiety when she has to write it, is there someone, maybe even another student, who would be willing to type while she dictates? Perhaps she could offer a trade of some sort - doing a favor in return for theirs. Another option is to try out Dragon Dictation. It does pretty well with predictive text. She'll likely need need help editing if she's poor at spelling, but she can email it to you for that if you can help with that part. And the last option is for her to record herself dictating the paper and then type it out as she plays it back.

Hope this helps.

It is not really an uncommon situation for students to have challenges with writing and most colleges have writing centers with tutors available. Has she been working totally on her own or does she go to the writing center? If she wants to hire someone to work with her, there are likely graduate students in English who would be happy to get the money.

When she was eval'd for ADHD did she have ability (IQ) and/or achievement testing? Any other types of neuropsych testing? If you have any testing info, we might be able to help you look for hints in the test numbers that point to possible dysgraphia. My ds12 has dysgraphia and has many similar symptoms to what you mentioned in your reply on the other thread. On IQ tests dysgraphia is reflected in a dip in processing speed score relative to VIQ and PRI and in achievement testing it is reflected in a dip in scores on subtests requiring handwritten vs oral response. If she's had a neuropsych eval she might also have had tests to assess fine motor and visual motor integration which might indicate dysgraphia.

I agree that right now you need to focus on getting the two assignments completed, but also think that it might help if you have existing test data that indicates the possibility of dysgraphia you could share that with the colleges disability services office and it might help in advocating for keeping your dd in school next semester.

I would not push Dragon with 2weeks left in the semester - too much effort required to get up to speed to use it effectively when your dd is under a severe time crunch. I'd focus on acrimony, even if it meant dd acrimony to me on the phone long-distance or via skype.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Nik
What kind of writing does she have to do - creative or more scholarly, research kind for the social sciences. If the former then the dictating should help. But for the latter, I tell my students to focus on the thesis and the outline and then you can write it in small batches because you know what your argument is. You shouldn't really write something all at once, rarely stays on target that way, so for any student it should help to outline first. I dont mean an outline like a, b and c, but an annotated outline where you break down each section by what you want to say and the support for it. This way you are essentially jotting down ideas without the pressure of crafting the language. I find this helpful in my own work, especially when I am not "feeling" the creative part of wriitng, i just get down the gist of what i want to say and then worry about making it nice later.

ALso, polarbear is right that all colleges have disability accommodations, usually in the
student life umbrella. Usually it translates to extra time for tests, not for writing assignments, but it can.

DeHe

ps - our power is out today and I replied from my phone .... and o just noticed that where I typed in "scribe" my spell-check corrected it to "acrimony" - yikes! So I tried to use the edit option and couldn't scroll down far enough to make the change ... apparently my SmartPhone isn't all that smart!

polarbear

Polarbear, her IQ scores were:
Verbal Comprehension: 141
Perceptual Organization: 119
Working Memory: 102
Processing Speed: 105

her sub-test relative weaknesses were digit-span, letter-number sequencing and coding

There is a lot of other info in the report but I didn't see anything about handwritten vs oral responses - maybe that isn't part of the adult WAIS?

I looked up acrimony...not sure what you mean there. I can't get her to respond to emails let alone turn her phone on, I think she is afraid of being lectured to. I may have to get on a plane...

I have shared the diagnostic report with the assistant dean who is also the ADA person but this school has no timed tests or any of the usual things that need accommodating. I believe they have already cut her some slack in allowing her until the end of the semester to complete the essays.

DeHe I guess they would be considered more creative/critical thinking type essays, more of a personal inquiry into the subject so I think the dictation would work (one is 5 pages on Euclid's Elements - I can't for the life of me think how I would begin to write five pages about math, but she is really into it, she could talk your ear off a mile a minute on it and yet, writing...not so much). She has never responded well to suggestions of outlining her writing or any of the other tricks that worked for me. When she does write she writes very well and does not veer off topic but I think it takes weeks/months of sorting out in her mind before it comes out on paper.

The gap between processing speed and VCI is really large; similar to ms D's gap. Coding was a weakness which was relayed to dysgraphia.

On the achievement tests there isn't a specific test for handwritten cs oral response but if there is scatter in subtext scores you can plot a chart of scores on tests that require a written response vs tests that require oral response abd see if there is a trend of lower scores on subtests requiring written response.

I'm still on my phone so will have to reply in detail later, but fwiw there are accommodations beyond extended time that are reasonable to request for students with dysgraphia as well as software outside of Dragon.

From the scores you posted I would suspect dysgraphia plus possibly other challenges - Thera a large Spanish between PRI and VIQ.

polarbear

Don't you just love auto-correct?

ACK!!!!

No more from my phone lol!!!

polar