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At what age did you evaluate for dysgraphia and how did you do it? Our daughter saw a neuropsych when she was four. At that time, she was too young to test for it.

She is now six and is still resistant to writing and drawing, which gets her in trouble. Her dad has dysgraphia, and we think she might have it too. Many signs are there, but the thing that has always kept me doubting was that her handwriting, while labored, painful, with caps in the middle, etc., isn't totally unreadable, like my husband's.

We thought pain might just be bad pencil grip and resistance might just be motor, so we would put her in OT now and test in first grade if that didn't help, but after talking to the curriculum specialist at her school, I'm thinking we should test for it before we put her in OT. None of this is paid for by insurance, so it is very expensive for us and we don't want to duplicate testing or spend a lot of money on the wrong therapies.

So questions:
1) At what age did you test?
2) Did you go to neuropsych or OT first? At this point we have a neuropsych, but the OT he recommends tests cost $525. Another OT (recommended by friends) costs $210, and we'd rather do that, if it makes sense.
3) What tests were done?
4) What kinds of things did you do to assist child before he/she was old enough to type? At this age our strategy is just to advocate and make school as bearable as possible, tell her that we love her and know that it is hard, and supplement at home by keeping her skills up with computer-based learning tools, which she loves and can't get enough of.

Question202, I don't know if our experience will help you or not, but this is how diagnosis happened for our ds (he's now 14, but was diagnosed at 8).

1) We tested when he was in 2nd grade (had just turned 8). He was diagnosed by a neuropsych, and we didn't take him in specifically for dysgraphia testing - in fact, we'd never heard of it at that point! We took him for neuropsych testing because he was struggling in school (no written output, teacher convinced he had ADHD), and our ped recommended neurospych eval because of the broad width of the testing and eval.

2) We did see an OT after the neuropsych, but that was after we already had the diagnosis. If you're going for a diagnosis through an OT, I'd try to get as many personal references as possible first (from other parents, your neuropsych, your ped, etc) before deciding which to go with. I've had experience with two different OT groups here in our area, and the degree of detail, depth, etc varied dramatically between the two. I don't know if it is the same everywhere, but the services and eval we received through the OT group at our local children's hospital's peds department was far superior in depth and ultimately usefulness than the private OT group we went through for our second go-round of OT. The reason we went with the second group was wait-list time - it would have taken us up to a year to get back onto the roster at the hospital.

3) Our ds was diagnosed by discrepancies in scores on ability subtests, as well as discrepancies between ability and achievement subtest scores - that was the "clue". The neurospcyh also looked at handwriting samples, and did follow-up tests to determine if the ability test discrepancies were due to either vision or fine motor issues (Beery VMI). She also used executive functioning tests (NEPSY) and some type of ADHD test as well as a functional behavior analysis - these probably aren't necessary if you know going in it's dysgraphia you are either dealing with or trying to rule out. Our ds also had a test through the OT, but I can't remember the name of it at the moment. I can look it up later this weekend if you'd like to know the name.

4) We started our ds typing right away, but he was diagnosed at 8. FWIW, my younger children started typing at the same time (they aren't dysgraphic but wanted to learn how to type and use the computer) - they were 4 and 6, and they caught on fairly quickly. Most OTs will recommend "adaptive" typing for young children rather than touch-typing - you let the child figure out how to type and come up with their own system, sometimes using only thumbs and index fingers, sorta like texting The one thing that was really key for us though was the official diagnosis - without that we would have had a really difficult time advocating at school, and more importantly, having the diagnosis helped us (parents) understand how to put together an accommodations and remediation game plan looking forward. This is one reason I would suggest considering at least a parent interview with your neuropsych - our neuropsych's advice was invaluable in helping us understand what to do to provide accommodations etc for our ds. In hindsight, I suspect I could have researched and figured much of it out on my own, but it took so much time researching when I *had* that expert advice - I can't imagine how much longer it would have taken without the advice of having the neuropsych observe and evaluate my ds.

Hope some of that helps!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Was it the Bender Gestalt?

I just want to add that OTs can not diagnose. They can assist, administer some tests and give input to a psychologist who is diagnosing but they can not diagnose - it is a complete waste to go to an OT to find out if your DS has dysgraphia. Also, some OTs have never even heard of it.

OT in conjunction with the psych gave my son a visual sequential memory test as well. Both the Bender and Visual Sequential memory tests were so incredibly low. I think the TOWL is also used in diagnosing dysgraphia? Polarbear, did your guy get the TOWL?




Our guy is typing. He is 8 1/2. He was just using his 'own system' but they kept loading more and more typing on him and even denying his scribing accommodations and making him type which was causing him to really break down. (By the way, his iep mandates scribing and oral and adaptive tests but they were circumventing giving him his accommodations by making him type all of the time). The final straw was when he hid in the bathroom to try to escape a comprehension test that he was going to have to type (he was having to type a seven part summary) and he just didn't have the skills. I threw a fit and insisted that teach him proper typing and in the meantime he is to get scribing for all tests and assessments until he is a proficient typist. So now he gets an OT pull-out during which he is taught touch-typing.

Thanks. PolarBear--do your young children use a regular laptop or do you have something smaller/easier for their hands?

DS6 has dysgraphia and was diagnosed about six months ago along with dyslexia and dyspraxia.

He gets typing instruction in kindergarten on a smaller keyboard. I think there are some color coded keys to help with proper hand placement. I think it is one lesson a week and then he types his spelling words five times each. He also gets a scribe (or coloring helper) for some activities and does Handwriting Without Tears with his OT at school.

Questions, my kids were using just regular laptops when they were young. They are a bit older now, and the world's changed in a big way - there were no iPads or tablets when my ds was 8, and to be honest, if we were starting out all over again, I would probably start ds out on an iPad (it's what he uses now, and the apps that are useful for dysgraphic kids have just completely exploded in numbers in the past few years). (OK, maybe not exploded but everything ds used to have to do on the laptop can - with very few exceptions - now be done on the iPad, the iPad is smaller, less obviously "different" when he's in class, lighter to carry around, apps cost much less than software... etc).

Anyway, I forgot to mention that when ds was first diagnosed, our neuropsych recommended scribing as an accommodation (before he learned how to type well enough to keep up) and also recommended that we teach him to print using Handwriting Without Tears at home. HWT didn't work - because we tried it before ds had OT for handwriting. The OT didn't cure his dysgraphia, but it was really important for our ds because it gave ds correct posture, a reasonable pencil grip, and the ability to write semi-legibly without wrist pain.

Our ds didn't use scribing in school, partly because the school wasn't really willing and partly because he also has an expressive language disorder and wasn't able to come up with anywhere near as much written output as Irena's ds can But for a young child who *is* able to get thoughts out of their head, scribing is an important accommodation until their typing ability has caught up with their output ability.

I'll also add that although adaptive keyboarding was recommended (and that's what my youngest dd chose and still uses), my ds insisted he learn touch typing - that's just what he wanted to do, and his hands were big enough to be able to use it on a laptop-sized keyboard. He started out using BBC-Mat typing and then used a learn-to-type software package.

polarbear

ps - fwiw, when our ds was first diagnosed we had no idea that dysgraphia can have a familial connection, but one of ds' cousins was diagnosed as dysgraphic and dyslexic within the next year after ds was diagnosed, and I've also since learned that an older cousin is dyslexic - so chances are that genetics are involved for our ds. His grandfather is dead, but in looking back at what I knew of him, I wouldn't be surprised if he was also dyslexic and dysgraphic.

Yes my DS is very verbal and has much to say! He just can't physically write it. School is SUCH a pain about dysgraphia. I am not sure if they really are as stupid as they act or if they simply act like complete morons to get out of things. Either way, be prepared... You will have to tell them every little step to make, they'll resist giving any kind of scribing (fight for this it is really, really important) and then you'll have to make sure they are implementing. CHances are they'll completely resist identifying it. My son's school did and he is pretty severe. But, in the end, ypur battles are worth it and make the school teach him typing and it'll all be fine eventually!

Yeah OT can help (how much it helps varies) but it will not cure dysgraphia. I had a mindset for a awhile that my kid will do tons of OT and he'll be "normal" and catch up. Forget it. Yes do the OT and get him as functional as he can be but make sure you get him typing and work-arounds. I found the sooner I accepted this the better things I got for my DS. Hope all this helps!

Oh and yes I am pretty sure my husband is dysgraphic and even midly dyslexic... I don't but something is up with him however he is definitely milder than my DS. But my DS is also more gifted.

Our son saw a neuropsych at 8 and was diagnosed then. We went to a neuropsych because our school wouldn't test him for learning disabilities since he wasn't far enough behind. We expected dyslexia but the neuropsych also identified dysgraphia and an auditory processing disorder.

I honestly don't remember the tests, but our insurance covered them for developmental delays instead of educational diagnosis.

We found squishy pencil grips and paper with raised bumps for lines helped, but not all that much. The IEP allowed for severely reduced output, and we decided after a couple of miserable years that some zeros were completely acceptable when the project was too overwhelming and the teacher wasn't budging.

The other thing we did was not limit screen time with computer or gaming consoles because both required fine motor skills. He started using the computer when he was about 1 1/2, and he learned to spell his name having to type it in for his password.

We also bought a keyboard, because he loved playing music that he made up, so he would play for hours. The keyboard helped strengthen his fingers, even if he couldn't do proper fingering.