Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Handwriting & related issues - any thoughts?

DS is not technically 2E, but he clearly has some issues. He has really bad handwriting and at most marginal fine motor skills. Anyhow, I requested an evaluation through DS' teacher (who described his handwriting as really bad) at the end of 2nd grade. At that time, the OT conducted an informal evaulation and concluded that while DS had some specific issues such as size/formation/spacing of letters/words, that it was very mild. She also essentially blamed any problems on his hand's inability to keep up with the output from his brain because he was so very bright. I let it go.

This year (4th grade), his pre-algebra teacher expressed concerns regarding his handwriting and fine motor skills. I reaquested another evaulation. The school is required to provide an "informal" evaluation but does not need to take it any further (convene IEP meeting to authorize full evaulation) if the OT opines that it is not warranted. Of course, the OT did not find any problems. She also quoted his 4th grade teacher (not his pre-algebra teacher), who does not think there is a problem. In retrospect, I probably should have gone through his 4th grade teacher, but I was just used to communicating with the administration directly and I had not spoken to or met with his 4th grade teacher at all this whole year. I also just really respect DS' pre-algebra teacher, who I communicate with regularly. Anyhow, according to the OT and/or his 4th grade teacher, DS doesn't have a problem because he is "very bright" and writes at a speed "faster than average" and has no problem finishing his work, etc.

To be fair, he writes a bit neater on his classwork for his 4th grade teacher so it is more legible than the stuff that his pre-algebra teacher sees. However, he also has problems writing small enough to fit into designated spaces, which becomes more of an issue in higher grades. In fact, his 3rd grade teacher last year was concerned that it would negatively impact his state testing. I am confident that it did based on comparisions with his twin and all their other test results, but since he still scored above the "advance" threshold, nobody is going to care.

Sorry for the rambling, but I am trying to figure out how to proceed. DS knows that he has a problem. He has explicitly said to me, "Mommy, I have really bad handwriting. How can I make it better?" It is also clear that his handwriting continues to impact the quality of his writing, but because his writing is still at the top of his class so far. . .

I let it go two years ago, thinking that it might simply improve with maturity like the problem with letter reversals. However, he is now a 4th grader and should not contnue to have issues with letter size/formation/spacing. I did not necessary think that they would be willing to provide him with OT, but I wanted to make sure that if he needed accomodations (i.e., typing versus writing), that I have it set up before middle school where it would be much easier for kids to get lost and where they tend to be less caring than the elementary schoool staff.

Perhaps it may still get better with time? The letter reversals finally stopped about two years ago. While it isn't unusual for Kindergarteners through 2nd graders to reverse their p's and q's, I always found it bizarre that he could read Harry Potter fluently at age 6, but still had trouble distinguishing some of his letters. On the other hand, I am still waiting for him to master left and right. He still has to use one of several elaborate methods to deduce left from right but it is getting quicker and may some day approach automatic. Having been blessed with exceptional fine motor and graphomotor skills, I just don't know how to help him on the handwriting issue.

Quantum, as the parent of a child with fine motor dysgraphia, there is a lot that is familiar in your post, including things such as reversals getting better with time but always that nagging feeling like the fine motor skills just don't seem quite on track. The inability to master left vs right is a huge red flag for me, and I would want further evaluations. I can make some suggestions re what to do re advocating for the evaluations at school... but my personal recommendation would be to first seek out a private neuropsych evaluation. Some of us here have been able to have our medical insurance cover the eval, so if you'd be willing to consider it, I'd start by asking your ped for a recommendation, see if it's something you can afford or is covered by insurance and if it is doable - DO IT. It will be so much easier and give you (most likely) more thorough answers and recommendations for the path-forward moreso than you will get through a school eval.

A few quick notes re school - first, the school OT can't independently decide your ds doesn't qualify for an IEP eligibility review (ie, testing) - the "team" that is made up of teachers, parents, SPED staff person etc has to make the decision together, so you should have a voice in the process. That said, you'd most likely have a stronger voice if you also have a private diagnosis. It definitely helped us when our ds' "team" (the school staff part of it) tried their best to argue nothing was an issue, because we could politely and calmly just refer them back to hard data.

We were also told numerous times at school meetings that our ds' handwriting speed was "average". If the school is telling you something about your ds' handwriting speed, be sure to ask them to quantify it (give you a letters/minute or words/minute number) and also to rank it compared to peers (is it faster/slower than his grade level peers) - there are quite a few studies that you can find online (and that his OT should be able to access) that will give expected handwriting speed ranges by grade level. When our school tried to tell us our ds' handwriting speed was "average" we asked them to do this, and we found out it he was actually writing at a rate several years below his grade level.

FWIW, our ds has keyboarding/etc accommodations in place and relies on AT to write in almost all of his work at school at this point... but the area that our ds is most impacted in at this point is math, and I'm not surprised that's where a teacher is first pointing out an issue. It takes our ds a *long* time to write out his math problems, and he spends approximately 2-3 times as long on math homework than his peers do or his teacher expects homework to take because of that. There are tech solutions that can absolutely help with this - our ds doesn't choose to use them at this point (with a few exceptions)... but it's very clear that our ds is very *good* at quickly picking up on math concepts, yet it takes him a horrendously long time to write out math problems due to his dysgraphia. One thing you could do while you wait for an evaluation for your ds is to ask his pre-algebra teacher for informal accommodations. Examples of accommodations for math include: reduced # of problems worked (every other problem or one problem for of each type of concept etc) (which works great for high ability kids who usually don't need repetition to grasp a concept), extended time on tests, extended homework deadline, and use of AT that you provide (laptop or iPad with software that is math-specific). We've found with our ds that sometimes even though the school as a whole is arguing against accommodations etc, an individual teacher who cares and recognizes the challenge, will be willing to let a child have informal accommodations - and these can be quite helpful later on as you're advocating for official accommodations, because they give you a record of how the accommodations can be implemented easily and successfully as well as a record of how well they work.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Hmm. I'm a bit confused about what's going on here, but since DS9 also has always had trouble with handwriting, let me try...

His pre-algebra teacher presumably normally works with much older students, right? In that case I think her judgement of whether he has trouble that needs treatment (as opposed to accommodating) is not useful. If you put a child in an environment where the handwriting/fine motor expectations are those that are reasonable for older children, it's unsurprising that they struggle and that might show up as a problem with neatness, speed, or whatever. I think I'd sympathise with the teacher on the difficulty of finding ways for him to express what he can do given his asynchronicity, give her some ideas where possible, and ignore.

Compared with age mates, what problems does he have, exactly? Lack of neatness? But if he's writing faster than average, he may just be making that neatness/speed trade-off differently from some; maybe consciously thinking about the tradeoff might help? I might suggest picking a paragraph and writing it out repeatedly, at different speeds and neatnesses, to help get the feel of how you can choose a point on the spectrum. You mention spacing and letter formation - are those current problems? Trouble writing the right size to fit in a designated box strikes me as pretty typical at this age. Ditto using a method to tell left from right rather than just knowing (I still do, although you probably wouldn't know what the tiny hand movement I make is for if you watched me!)

The key thing seems to be that it's bothering him. That suggests something needs to be done, but whether the something is professional help or just helping him to find a way to work at it himself depends on whether you think there's really a problem beyond asynchronicity.

Thanks, Polarbear. Those are excellent points. I have an older child who is dysgraphic and he presented so differently. That child actually had pretty handwriting in the younger grades because he was a decent artist and essentially drew his wrting. It wasn't until late 2nd to early 3rd grade when the writing demand multiplied that his handwriting fell apart. It was so clear that he had trouble getting his thoughts on paper and always needed extra time to complete any writing tasks.

With my younger DS, while he is not a prolific writer like his twin, substance-wise his academic writing is probably a little better and he is usually one of the first ones done in class. On the other hand, punctuation and capitalization can still be hit or miss. Even on the English section of the Explore, his rhetorical skills was 100%, but the usage/mechanics pulled the English score down a bit.

I am considering the private evaluation route, but I would have to pay 100% out of pocket due to the way our insurance works and the fact that we already had huge medical expenditures for his brother this year.

I could "force" an IEP meeting, but unless I have independent assessment to contradict the school OT's opinion, we would be dead in the water. I have to figure out whether this is worth the expenditure at this point in time.

This time, the OT actually time DS' handwriting and typing speed. I will try to double-check her, but basically she indicated that the typical handwriting pace for a 4th grader is 34-70 letters per minute. DS' copying speeds was in the mid 70s and dictation was 123. His typing speed was a litte below the copying speed due to correcting mistakes. the funny thing is that I was never worry about his speed, just everthing else.

As for his pre-algebra teacher, we don't have issues now because he meets with DS one-on-one one day a week and DS works independently the other four days. His teacher was concerned for when DS goes back into a regular middle school classroom. DS is not actaully slow with the math writing plus his teacher lets him get away with not showing his work for a large portion of the assignments. If he had to write out everything, then the assignments could take longer than optimal.

I just don't know. It would be easier if it were clearer.

You are correct that his teacher previously worked with middle and high school students. However, he also teaches several other 5th graders from other schools who aren't that much older so he has some basis of comparision as well.

Aside from the neatness and spacing, he also has trouble writing small enough to fit into boxes, which become more and more of an issue in the older grades. It isn't normal around here. Most other children in his classes do not exhibit that kind of difficulty at all. Same thing with left and right by this age. It's that obvious so DS noticed. It may be that DS will be making the tiny hand movement (picking up a pencil?) to remind himself. If it is fast enough, then it won't matter so much.

Quantum, I didn't realize you had an older dysgraphic child. I would for sure suspect dysgraphia based on having someone else in the family who has it - dysgraphia and dyslexia can both have familial tendencies. Left-right confusion is also *not* common for this age group - our neuropsych felt our ds' left-right confusion was an issue at 8.

I agree that even though it's perhaps not an issue now, you're wise to think forward and prep for accommodations in middle school. Have you thought of going the route of requesting a 504 hearing? Some of the data you can use to advocate for the accommodations is data you can collect at home. Or... (sorry I'm skipping around because I'm thinking "out loud" as I write)... have you actually had a team meeting to discuss whether or not your ds should be considered for the IEP eligibility process (this is the process that includes the full testing). If not, I'd request an eligiblity review in writing. I understand the OT is not going to agree to it - but you still have the right to have a meeting and make a team decision re whether or not your ds requires an eligibility review. If the team together all says "no", you can appeal that decision and possibly get an Independent Evaluation.


Can't you request that a team meeting be called to consider an evaluation? Or is that what you did? The way it works as I understand it is, you would put the request for an evaluation in writing and the school would have x # of days to respond (60 days per Federal Law, sometimes less per state law or school district policy). The school team will meet within that time frame (and the meeting should include parents), and the team together will agree yay or nay to an eligibility review. If the team says "no" - the parents still usually have a right to appeal and request an independent eval.

polarbear

ps - another thought - do you think you could get a private OT eval through your medical insurance?

Polarbear, you are correct as far as the legalities. I have just always look at the big picture to make sure that I win the war rather than each battle. I often tolerate minor IEP violations to preserve a cooperative relationship, which has served me well and frankly provided my older DS more than required by his IEP at times. However, my younger DS is a different case. Even though he clearly has some issues, I am not sure that they rise to the level of a diangosis. Even if it does, he likely would not qualify for an IEP. Any accomodation would more likely fall under a 504. However, an IEP meeting would have to be convened to decide on a formal assessment.

I am being careful here also because the school has been very cooperative in accelerating DS twice in math and his present arrangement is not cheap and I still need to make sure that similar (equally not cheap) arrangements are in place for next year.

Thanks so much for your thoughtful reply. It's the reason why I post here. Sometimes I need to write things out to figure out what I should do.