ps - please note, I hope this sounds kind and not disrespectful because that's not my intent at all - but as the parent of a dysgraphic child seeking advice for dysgraphia, it would be helpful to me if the posters who are replying would state whether or not their child is dysgraphic. I don't have time to refer back to previous posts to see if each child is dysgraphic, and it is information that makes a difference in reading about people's experience with HWOT etc - because the children who are going through the instruction are coming at it with a very different set of abilities if they are or aren't dysgraphic. My non-dysgraphic kids were all taught HWOT at school and it worked very well for them - but they don't have a challenge with developing automaticity.
no it isn't disrespectful...My older son has Asperger's with hypotonia (not hypermobility) which can be typical for a child with Asperger's. His hands fatigued easily from the hypotonia (and still do but less so than before unless it is like a 45 minute writing test). He also had motor planning and motor memory problems from toddlerhood through about age 8 or 9 and gradually started growing out of those two problems. No, he doesn't have dysgraphia but he did have significant problems and challenges and tons of anxiety on top of all of that.
He did find HWT helpful and the verbal rehearsal of the steps of the strokes to make the letters was helpful "up like a helicoptor" "down the fireman's pole" etc. But I understand the fact that I don't know exactly the needs of dysgraphic students. I only knew that HWT was very helpful for my older son with all his issues and it is widely loved by many.
My younger son is another story. He can go through the HWT program 100 times for print and still can't get it to generalize to everyday usage. His handwriting is beyond typical 8 year old boy and is worst in the class/what are we going to do with him horrible. I taught him HWT cursive this summer and he did a real good job learning it but once again is having a hard time generalizing it. I have thought it is time for an OT eval for him because something is really up with his handwriting (but he doesn't have Asperger's or hypotonia or anything that his older brother has so I wonder what his problem could possibly be seeing as though he doesn't have any physical or neurological challenges to the naked eye and he just had a visual/motor integration test that showed smack dab average so that isn't the problem).
