We still don't (and probably will never) have a diagnosis of dysgraphia for my DD 13 because the OT "cannot legally diagnose anything" in our state. The ed psych wouldn't diagnose because WISC scores were too high, but refered us to the OT. The pediatrician won't diagnose because it is an OT eval. ... and so it goes. The OT agrees, off the record, that we are dealing with dysgraphia and DD now has a 504 in place with no official diagnosis.
That being said, what it looks like in her is a horrible pencil grip; incorrect formation of letters; pain in arm from writing; avoiding writing assignments or intentionally "dumbing them down" to write as little as possible.
She also has MAJOR spelling issues. She reads on a very high level, has an incredible oral vocabulary, but will avoid using more advanced vocabulary in writing because she cannot spell. When she uses a computer, though, she has won essay contests and has had several poems and essays published.
When she took the SAT for talent search this spring, she had to copy a sentence in cursive for the honor code. It took her 15 minutes to copy one sentence, she had to ask how to form some letters (which she had been taught previously), and she still had spelling errors copying words that were right in front of her.
Although she is in an accelerated math sequence, we see many issues with careless mistakes in math -- mostly from copying issues when she rewrites the problem.
Whether or not it is directly related to dysgraphia, she has diagnosed hand/eye coordination issues (6th percentile on the Beery VMI). She was 11 before she could tie her shoes without using "bunny ears." Now that she's in middle school, she has difficulty opening her lock on the locker. We have also seen some issues in band.
She definitely deals with working memory issues, but as we were able to see from the SB-V, in her case, her deficiency is mostly with non-verbal working memory.
