That's a *handwriting* challenge - but it's also possible there's a different reason your dd is slow with written work. Does it take her a long time to come up with ideas to write about? That might also show up in one of the WJ-III Achievement Writing subtests (I can't remember the name of it, but my ds had this challenge when he was first tested, and it showed up as another anomalously low subtest score).
If the challenge is simply speed of handwriting, it will be useful to time her while she's writing, count the number of letters per minute and compare it to age or grade level averages (which you can find online).
Thanks, yes she does have problems with writing--not in terms of spelling or handwriting, but the overall speed and she can't come up with ideas. She can't do creative writing at all and writes the same story about her cats over and over again (complete with a drawing of a dead cat and caption saying "dead cat" or something). Her second grade teacher last year said that this is not what she was expecting compared to her other abilities. I am hoping that this place would be able to get at whether this is a written expression problem, or a problem with the ADHD and not being able to organize her thoughts, or what.
Is the "slowness" related to actual handwriting speed or lack of being able to think of what to write? Do you see slowness across the board (for instance, when she's copying, or writing an explanation of a fact that she knows what she wants to write? Or only when she has an open-ended writing assignment?
This testing can help you determine if handwriting speed is an issue due to dysgraphia (which it doesn't sound like it is), and there is the one subtest that will show you whether or not she's below expectations with "generating written expression"... but fwiw, my ds also had these same challenges with generating ideas of *what* to write about, particularly with open-ended assignments, and for him it was related to an expressive language disorder and we did *not* get the info or help we needed for that through this type of assessment. The assessment that pinpointed what was the issue re this type of challenge was through a speech pathologist (he has a diagnosis of expressive language disorder) and the *help* he's needed also came through working with a speech language pathologist. Sorry to throw out yet another suggestion that's slightly in a different direction for you, and again, that might not be what's going on with your dd...
Anyway, the accommodations we've done for ds re this type of challenge (long time coming up with ideas to write about)... were graphic organizers in early elementary and specific prompting, give him a specific place to start rather than a completely open-ended direction, give him an outline, software that turned mind-maps into outlines, etc. Once he started working with a speech pathologist she was able to help find very specific prompts and tricks that helped get the ideas flowing... but they were so specific to him I don't think they are worth mentioning on the board because they won't apply to all kids with the same challenge (you can pm me if you'd like more info). This has actually been much more of a challenge for our ds than his handwriting challenge, because there are so many AT solutions for handwriting.
Gotta run - hope this makes sense!
polarbear
