Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional One 'Good School Experience'

So, I am home with vomiting children today so I guess I'll be chatting a decent amount with y'all between clean-ups. Anyway wanted to share a positive experience. School psych called me today. She really is the only one who remotely gets it - I think I love her right now She is helping with the observations of DS regarding inattention. She thinks dysgraphia is playing a much bigger role in the inattention problems and that it really needs to be addressed. Finally. So, right now, people seem to understand, to some extent, that DS has EDS and therefore has physical pain associated with writing. However they DO NOT seem to understand at all the DS has dysgraphia and what that means. I had given up even educating them on it b/c his teacher seems never to have heard of it and no one seems to understand it and they just completely blow it off and want to talk about "attention." She claims she is going to really work on teasing out the affect dysgraphia is having during her observations, educating the teachers/staff, etc on this, and looking for specific accommodations for that part to help. Oh My God. I had totally given up on the school understanding or accommodating the dysgraphia at all. Now I have hope. I really hope she isn't shut down on this. She says she really thinks this needs to be properly addressed. I am so relieved, I hope it actually happens.

By the way, I spent ALL last year trying to get the school to look at the dysgraphia/possibly dyslexia. In addition to trying to stop them from taking away his writing accommodations. I literally gave up on the dysgraphia , completely defeated and hoped that the EDS diagnosis and accommodations would be enough to mitigate the dysgraphia challenges. If the dysgraphia really, actually, truly gets even partially addressed I do think it'll be such a big help with the in attention.

Irena for education purposes for professionals, this helps sometimes.
dysgraphia handbook

That's an awesome resource, MON. Thanks.

Thanks so much MON. I sent it to the school psych and DS's classroom teacher. I hope that was a good move and not one that will annoy them. Hopefully it'll help. I can't tell you how relieved and hopeful I am that someone is finally going to start talking about dysgraphia. See, this is how it feels when you are CERTAIN of a "label!" Yeah it's label ("learning disordered" no less - not exactly a great label to be walking around with indeed) but there is no doubt in my mind that it is completely accurate and would be infinitely more helpful for my DS to have than to not. I feel like I have been BEGGING for someone to look at the dysgraphia label for my DS since DS was 5 years old. I mean he simply screams "dysgraphia" to me. How people keep ignoring it I have no idea. The school literally would change the subject and simply not talk about it at all. I just really am relieved/excited that it will finally be addressed in some way to some extent.

Irena, I am happy for you
In my child's PS last year, a parent asked the PTA to arrange an "Abilities Awareness" campaign and event at the school. They organized booths in the library and each parent whose child had a particular condition presented about that condition and how it affects those kids to both the staff and the children. They even made activities in the booth to demonstrate the conditions for kids - for example one was disabilities - the kids were asked to do tasks and pretend that they were blind and then asked how difficult it was. They were then shown how the blind kids did that same task etc. I only read about it in the newsletter as it was an event for the staff and students. But, they said that the event was meant to raise awareness amongst kids and admin and teachers on how a disablity could affect some kids.
Since you are struggling with a lack of awareness and empathy for your son's disablity, I thought that this would be an idea that helps you.

Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!

What a great resource for parents of dysgraphics! Thank you!

Thanks Ashley!

I once saw an awareness class given to educators on dyslexia and dysgraphia and they made the educators write with their non-dominant hand, on paper with no lines...The educators had to takes notes this way. It was amazing the reactions they had. I am pretty sure the video was on YouTube... If anyone knows of it and has the link handy, please post it!

From the descriptions they should have made them bite their own tongues every time they wrote as well.

Great resource mon!

Irena, I'm so glad that the school psych seems to understand and that she'll be part of the observation process

I'm also sorry your kiddos are home sick - I hope everyone feels better soon!

polarbear