I was told by a writing specialist who my DS7 is working with that there isn't a nationally normed assessment for dsygraphia (to her knowledge) but it is more of a behavioral observation diagnosis. For about a year after learning about dysgraphia, I have suspected that my DS has dsygraphia. The neuropsych who did a full evaluation diagnosed him with DCD, but he did not feel that he could make a dsygraphia diagnosis based on his time with my son. It has been the writing specialist who sees my son twice a week "in action" who has told us she believes he shows the characteristics of dsygraphia.
polabear makes a very good point about doing a full evaluation rather than looking for a specific disorder as your DC's difficulties may be caused by a number of issues, not just dsygraphia (as is with my DS). Also, based on my experience, you may need someone who works more closely with your DC on a regular basis who can make this sort of diagnosis for you rather than a neuropsych.
Here's the catch-22 though - if you'd started with the writing specialist, you wouldn't be aware of the DCD, would you? I'm not asking about this to be picking, just pointing out how difficult and complicated challenges like this can be to understand. My ds' diagnosis is actually DCD, with dysgraphia as a component of the DCD. DCD presents in many different forms, and I only really have my ds' experience to draw from, but the DCD impacts him in other areas of his life - and had I started with simply a writing specialist, he/she would not have seen outside the writing frame - which means we might not be seeing other impacts of DCD for what they really are - so many of the symptoms can be misinterpreted as laziness, lack of focus etc.
One other piece of advice that I have learned just in the last couple of weeks about my DS through this writing specialist is that accommodating dsygraphia can be a tricky thing. She feels that he may have been given too many accommodations this past school year which has lead him to believe that he can't do the work at all without help and thus he resists doing any writing at all. He doesn't have belief in himself, which he freely tells me. She absolutely gets that it is a tough thing for him and something he struggles with. However I fully agree with her after seeing her work with him that he is capable of more than he was doing. We are working to find that line for him where it is just the right amount of help.
I also agree that finding the right place where accommodations are needed vs further work with learning is a very tricky thing - otoh, I think the "trick" is more in not letting ourselves press too hard in the direction of not accommodating. We all want our kids to learn how to use handwriting, and they will need some very basic skills with handwriting (how to sign their name, for instance). But it's really hard as a parent to notice at what point too *much* effort is going into learning letters and producing handwriting. For instance, my ds spent two years working on learning cursive handwriting at school, and yes, he learned how to write in cursive - but once it was no longer practiced daily in school (as in, no direct lessons for how to form each letter) - he forgot how to do it. The whole issue with dysgraphia is the lack of development of automaticity. Yes, they can learn to use handwriting - but it takes a *lot* longer and requires a lot more effort than it does for neurotypical kids. And when they are using handwriting, the act of using it takes up a significantly larger portion of working memory than is required for a neurotypical person, hence they are at a disadvantage in being able to do things like spell correctly, use correct grammar, and add detail and complexity to their writing.
Another tough wall that parents run into, not just with dysgraphia but with other LDs etc is - at some point, the effort put into remediating becomes so time-consuming that it takes away from the benefits of letting the child spend that same time pursuing their passions and things in their areas of strength. I've found this to be a really difficult line to walk - where do you push, where do you just drop something - but in the end, to be quite honest, with my two 2e kiddos, the answer was to push remediation as much as possible in early elementary but then let it go and focus on strengths.
Best wishes,
polarbear
