Although there are different reasons behind dysgraphia (fine motor vs visual etc), the thing that I understand to be common is that it is essentially a challenge with developing automaticity of tasks. From my perspective, the thing to do at this point is to take a deep breath and.... let it go. Focus on typing and accommodating and give your ds time and opportunities to focus on his academic strengths (science or puzzles or math or whatever they may be!).
I totally agree with this but I think I just need reassurance regarding this sometimes.
Irena, if it helps, please know I need reassurance at times too, and I often question what to do. It's easy for me to write a post about our experiences and to sound like I know what I'm talking about, but I am just one mom who's trying my best without much of a roadmap other than researching online, talking to everyone I can (professional or not), and figuring out what makes sense for my one child and my one family.
My dd9 is struggling with reading - she's not classically dyslexic but has a challenge with associative memory and has a dyslexia diagnosis. She's in a new school this year, with a new teacher, and when we were having our beginning-of-the-year conference and I was handing the teacher dd's reading evals, telling her about dd's history and challenges and all that, the teacher asked what we had done to remediate spelling. We haven't done anything - we chose not to because it was a struggle, because it drove dd nuts, and because we felt we needed to focus on actual reading, not worrying about whether or not spelling was automatic at this point in time. I can't tell you how many shades of guilt through embarassment through second-questioning what we'd done up to this point in time I went through just in that one split-second before I asnwered, and how worried I was about the teacher thinking I'd been negligent plus the teacher thinking I was a slacker-mom or whatever. But fortunately, the teacher agreed that was the thing to do based on everything else
I only mention all of that to let you know, I may sound like I have a clue or have it all together sometimes here, but I'm really still just in the same place the rest of us all are - looking for answers, thinking everything through re how it applies for my own child, and hoping I make good choices. I doubt there are really any "right" choices, and I'm still learning from everyone who posts here
Re the remediation available for dyslexia vs dysgraphia - I think the difference is in the root of the challenge combined with the need for remediation. I also think that dysgraphia has gone largely unrecognized until recent years because it's easy to mistake it for sloppy handwriting, whereas a child who can't read stands out and falls behind quickly in early elementary.
polarbear
