Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional handwriting woes - long

My DS5 is in love with learning about everything to the point that I can't keep up with him he was so excited to learn and was fascinated with the whole scientific breakdown of the chemical reason the color changes happened in leaves in the fall- he has dyspraxia and Sensory processing disorder and fine motor coordination is a huge problem for him. He is also a 100% perfectionist which just adds to the wild mix. He has always had huge problems with grasping crayons/pencils and with the help of other OTs, teachers and friends we have tried a multitude of special things - grips, special writing utensils, slantboards, feet supported at the table..the list goes on and then add in a large array of muscle activities/games to help build that fine motor coordination. He has grown and we can now read his name - when he focuses he can write his letters and numbers but it is a real struggle for him and he complains that his fingers/hands are always so tired. He knows that writing is not his strength and beats himself up if what he does isn't always correct or perfect to what he wants it to be and it has been a real sore spot for him. So my problem is this...

...we are homeschooling this year for K because our county just has no clue how to help a 2e child but I am a little lost as to how to proceed. I have a child who can verbally tell me every answer he is asked, when we do any kind of lessons - math, science, reading he is verbally involved and very articulate and excited but the minute that we have to do any kind of journaling or writing to complete math problems or any writing/drawing, he just wants to quit and shut down. I don't want to dampen his love of everything and had been working out a deal where when it came to math problems, we would take turns...he would always give me the answer and I would write one answer and he would write the next and so on. We are doing Handwriting without Tears in hopes of building his confidence. But whenever he has to write anymore than just a a few letters or one or two words, he gets so frustrated and upset he shuts down....part of me wants to jump in and just dictate the answers for him - he is doing the work and learning and knows the answers, I would just be writing everything down for him...but I don't know if that is what I should be doing? I know that if I forced him to do all the writing, we would be in a constant fight to get even the tiniest bit of work done and he would be miserable...but the other side, if I write for him, we would go for hours with lessons and explorations and he would not be stressed. I don't want to break his love of learning just because he can't write legibily. Would love to hear opinions.

Hi - I know there are others here with experience in this specific matter, and so I preface this with saying this is only my humble opinion. Since he is only 5, and ND kids are also just learning to write at that age, perhaps you can introduce the keyboard for all his learning activities he loves, and then just have a very short daily writing practice?

Yes, I agree with SPG. There's really no need to force the issue, is there? I think that's one of the good things about homeschooling: you can go fast in some areas and slow in others as it suits your child. I would think that *extremely short* but frequent practice sessions--maybe several per day--might be your best bet.

You might even want to focus on pre-writing exercises. Tracing circles and lines and things like that rather than "real" writing might be more helpful.

I'm certainly not an OT, but if he's struggling as much as you describe and getting that upset with it, it doesn't seem like it's very useful to him. He doesn't sound ready for what he's trying to do. Less seems like it might be more for him.

My 10 year old son with motor dyspraxia, SPD and hypotonia was very similar at your son's age.

My son didn't get OT in Kindergarten, so we had to figure out what worked best by trial and error. By 5 1/2 he was also able to write his letters and numbers but sometimes they were backwards, his writing was sloppy and if he didn't use lined paper the letters were different sizes and he had trouble leaving enough spaces in between words. His writing was legible, but barely, and he couldn't write very much at all before his hands hurt.

When he turned six, I started homeschooling him because the school recommended it. They said they had never seen a kid like him before and didn't know what to do with him, so I was left to figure out how to be a teacher and an OT without any training at all. All I had was message boards like teachers.net and other gifted boards where I sometimes asked questions.

Since I didn't have a clue what I was doing, I could only use trial and error. I saw very quickly that it didn't do my son or me any good to insist that he write as much as other kids because once he was to the point where his hands hurt and he was unhappy, he wasn't learning a thing and my blood pressure went up and we were both miserable. Short handwriting practice sessions helped, but he still had problems with spacing and occasional reversals. So at age 7, I took him to a developmental pediatrician, an OT, and an educational psychologist who tested his spelling ability by having him write the words which I thought was kind of crazy considering the handwriting issues. Once his hands got tired, he stopped writing and this was supposed to test his spelling ability? The "experts" just told me to use Handwriting without Tears. Since he had already learned how to write one way, he was not happy about having to learn a different way so we both thought the name "Handwriting without Tears" was a misnomer. He ended up writing the letters in whatever way was easiest for him. My only rule was that it had to be legible. His spacing did get better after using HWT and at age 9 the OT thought his handwriting (printing only) was good enough that she did not work with him on this. I think she called it low normal. He still has the problem with his hands getting tired after writing a few sentences, so he types almost everything now. He took his time learning cursive because we concentrated on printing since that is what most of the other Cub Scouts were using. When we used Handwriting without Tears for cursive writing, we found that once he was through with the books and tried to use regular paper instead of their special paper, he had some trouble with this, so I am lightly drawing lines in between the lines on regular notebook paper until he gets used to the regular paper.

One of the hardest things for us to deal with was multi-digit multiplication and division. At seven he had a terrible time keeping columns straight so I had to act as his scribe. At 10, this isn't as much of a problem, but hands getting tired is still a problem, so he only does a maximum of 4 or 5 math problems a day.

Recently, we started taking one day a week to just "get lost in Wikipedia Land" as my son likes to call it. We don't do any math or cursive handwriting practice on those days and we really enjoy this. Maybe it will take my son longer to become proficient at cursive handwriting but I feel like we both need these less stressful days. He learns more on Monday without the stress of working on motor skill dependent activities than any other day of the week. I am so glad that we have the freedom as homeschoolers to do this, to be able to learn and not be held back by a mild disability.

My oldest daughter has motor dysgraphia and my oldest twin definately has some fine motor problems. We don't push handwriting either. My oldest does some each day but a lot of work is computer oriented or done orally to take this into account. This year we finally started a penmanship book with her that she does an exercise a day, no more. She is now 8. My younger daughter does minimal handwriting each day as well. We often use a white board, unrelated to any specific lesson so as not to take away from it. We again try to work with the computer or orally with her as well.

I have found that they spend so much time and effort on the writing that they can't process what they are writing about. My oldest does very poorly in "written expression" because she can't write and express at the same time very well. My youngest will take more time to evaluate but I have definately learned not to push to hard. She has been evaluated by a PT and they wanted her pushed to a certain extent but only so far. i.e. she has to finish coloring in a box not just put a little color on it, more that type of thing verses actual writing letters and numbers. She is 5 by the way. I would rather not push and keep them interested in learning. My youngest just finished first grade science with me reading all the answers and marking what she said. She loved the learning!

Thanks so much for everyone's comments....I spoke for a long time last night with my husband and we both had the same feeling about what to do and it is exactly what everyone suggested- we as parents of course always worry that we might not be doing the best thing and it's an even harder job when your child doesn't fit the "norm". He gets one short handwriting lesson each day so we will just stick with worrying about the writing aspect during that short lesson (we picked the preschool handwriting without tears program which does a lot of shape/coloring/fine motor practice)and I will just write his answers in for the other work we do....that way he can still proceed at his rate and enjoy learning/exploring without being stressed.

Any others out there that have gone through homeschooling and I am wondering how this flies when I have to show his portfolio at the end of the year and there is minimal writing done on his part other than his handwriting lessons? I would take it that I would just have to explain to the teacher that reviews his portfolio what we have been doing as far as concentrating on handwriting. Thanks again for all the great comments/feedback

Can you have him type his answers? That might help show that he did the work instead of you. Or how about recording at least some of his answers in audio or video recordings? Just to cover your rear, you know?

Hi, Belle,

When we had DS evaluated at age 6, we were told that he will never write well enough or fast enough for his needs and that we should start teaching him how to type and how to dictate asap (i.e., as soon as his articulation was clear enough to be recognized by the software). He's HS'd for third grade now, and we've been working a lot on his writing. His printing finally looks like a third grader's and he's learning cursive, but he still hates to write, although a little less than before. From our experience, I'd say keep the writing short, recognizing how much effort is involved in writing, and give him the opportunity to get his thoughts out by allowing him to dictate to you, as well. That should lessen the frustration. That's what was suggested to us by the psych who tested him and the OT, and it seems to work for us. We use the BBC Dancemat program for typing and Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred for his dictation. He doesn't have the hang of the Dragon Speech yet, and the results are absolutely hilarious, but we're training for the future.

HTH.

Hey, you know, I couldn't leave this one without commenting.

Belle, this is what I tell every parent who is coming to me for OT whose child has the same problems.

First, focus on learning without writing. Accommodate the handwriting deficit in order to keep his love of learning alive and his learning moving forward. Think of it this way: if he had a clear physical disability that absolutely prevented him from writing you would accommodate and do dictation, voice activated software, etc. Do that for him now. Allow him to "show the work" in whatever way is easiest for him.

Next, address the underlying issues that contribute to his handwriting deficits. Doing fine motor drills is fine if the problem is fine motor coordination. But I suspect that this is not the *underlying* issue. My professional experience is that handwriting practice does very little to help the problem when the underlying issues aren't addressed. It's sort of like treating the symptoms of an illness but never addressing the cause.

I know you've said that you are not able to access an SI experienced OT in your area. Is there any way to at least get a really good evaluation and consult that would help you structure some home activities to address the hypotonia and dyspraxia? Can you find a Therapeutic Listening provider that would do the program on a consult basis, without seeing him directly except maybe once or twice a month? The program isn't really designed to be a stand-alone treatment but it alone is better than no SI based therapy at all.

Another approach to take, since you say his hands get so tired, is nutritional/biomedical treatment of the hypotonia. He most likely has poor postural stability through his core, from shoulders to hips, as well as in his hands. See if you can find a nutritionist or physician who understands nutritional treatment for low muscle tone. I find that kids who up their protein intake show good improvements in overall strength and endurance. Just a protein shake daily can help. A more structured program that includes B complex, E complex, L-Carnitine and Co-enzyme Q10 can help even more.

In the absence of being able to improve the actual mechanical production of handwriting, accommodation is the way to go. You are absolutely right, IMHO, to remove the demands of handwriting from his schooling.

We used a nutritional protein shake called Muscle Milk which was recommended by my daughter's body builder boyfriend. We are also using Omega 3, recommended by our OT.

He started putting on weight for the first time in his life after he started using this, so at least he doesn't look as skinny and weak as he did before and I think this helped his self confidence. He started lifting weights more than just once in a while. I think his strength improved, but I am not sure about his endurance, at least when it comes to walking. When I used our treadmill at home my endurance steadily increased, but his only increased a little and I think this bothers him. He has to work harder than others at physical things and then he only sees a slight improvement. He still had to stop and rest before my husband and I got tired at the state fair, but part of my son's problem might be his feet and loose ankle joints. He complains that his feet hurt whenever he has to do a lot of walking.

I don't think his endurance for handwriting or practicing piano improved very much, but any improvement at all is good. His piano teacher said she noticed an improvement after the few OT sessions we were able to get.

I often wonder if there is a limit to how much my son will be able to improve in and if I am pushing him too much and if it is worth the price. I don't want him to think that I think less of him because he has these issues, but I do want him to keep working on them. He has told me before that he wished I would accept him the way he is.

Learning is what keeps us going. We both like to learn. He can feel comfortable being the word nerd that he admits he is and enjoy history and science and at the moment economics and government without anyone telling him he is weird for being interested in these things. I tell him all the time that I am so happy that things turned out the way they did because I didn't get the chance to learn the things we are learning now.

He just wants to know it all. He teased me the other day when we were reading my old college economics book because there were parts I had underlined that I remembered reading but there were some sections I don't remember reading at all and they were not underlined. He said he had heard about "teaching to the test" but wanted to know if I was equally guilty of just "learning to the test" by skipping over parts that the teacher didn't say we would be tested on. He at least wants to skim through the parts that are not underlined.

He thinks it is really sad that it is so obvious that education is not a priority in our small town. He looked up our town on Wikipedia and pointed out the one line that talked about our school and the 20 or so lines about sports. We have a nice football field and a skate park, but no library. He thinks kids are getting the message that learning is not very important and he knows that he is lucky because he gets to learn.

No library!?! Wow! That IS bad! I can't imagine that.

Maybe he could start a library with donated books. Could be a great civics project.

Hi, I just wanted to add: where I live (Netherlands) children start learning to write at 6. Any Dutch would tell you 'of course, he is too young to write anyway'.

This is as well just my humble opinion though...

Our boy hates to write - always has. His teachers blamed his poor motor skills until we showed them some exquisitely detailed sculptures he had made. Thing is some kids just find writing laborious - especially if they're gifted. I don't know if this applies, but it is well documented
P

Hi Raddy,

Our son found writing script clearly to be frustrating. He prefers printing. I noticed his "a" are formed oddly. Most people make the loop, keep the pencil on the paper,come up counter-clockwise and make the tail last. He draws the tail as a straight line, then makes the loop clockwise. He is 27 and never uses script. It is still illegible. His kindergarten teacher told me that his fine motor skills were poor. Couldn't use scissors well. Ours is a long story, but we had to fight our district, he hated school, and was a child out of step with his peers. He's successful now.

If you need a portfolio for homeschooling, I suggest getting a voice recorder and recording various lessons in progress, or,if you are typing for him, recording your son dictating answers or writing to you