When I was in school poor handwriting was just called lack of effort
I remember in 6th grade getting assignments handed back to me with a big 0 on them and a note stating that the name was illegible and therefore the work could not be graded. I always felt that was so unfair, because how could the teacher claim she couldn't read my name/identify whose paper it was to hand it back to me if the paper claimed right on it the 0 was because she didn't know it was mine. lol
I see a lot of people advocating for typing here, but it took me many years to learn how to type. In college I was still a very poor typist. I failed typing in high school. Now I am good at it, but it just took forever for me to really master it (and multiple games and teaching programs, going back to dos!). I'm always wondering how all the kids learn how to type so easily and so young!
I have a very bad pencil grip too, but my son's pencil grip is perfect. No one ever understood how I could draw and have such poor handwriting. My cursive is still awful, so I don't use it anymore. I was also abysmal at spelling and I still am. Spell check is a wonderful invention and if my son has the same problems with spelling that I had I am all ready to insist that spelling is not longer even important. There are those times when even spell check can't figure out what I'm trying to write... but I tweak as needed.
Nothing would make me happier than hearing everything is good with my son. He's finally catching up on so much social stuff. He still can't hop on one foot or catch a ball and I'll leave it to the experts to decide what to do with all of that sort of information. I just want to get the whole picture so that we know what we are dealing with and can treat correctly. So many people say, oh, this is typical for a kid on the spectrum and leave it at that. Yet his ASD diagnosis has always been borderline and I hate to see everything attributed to it, anxiety, clumsiness, hyperactivity, impulsivity, even medical complaints like digestive concerns and allergies. I'm sick of hearing it's probably just part of the autism, especially when the ASD is so mild that it might not even be ASD.
So, very frustrating just never really knowing or understanding what is going on. The more tests we try, the more we learn, so after reading all of this I feel confident in pushing for all of the tests we can get in any areas of weakness. You never know what they will show. Thank you everyone for your input, it was very helpful. We still have that test in just over a week. I'm nervous, but trying to keep it well hidden. I coached my son a bit on the idea of tests and answering the questions to the best of his ability. I let him know that some questions will be too hard and that is OK, but to try his best on all of them. Hopefully he has a good day that day and goes in there and does his best. I figure I'll tell him he can have ice cream or a cookie or something after just to try to keep it all positive. I'll let you all know how we make out with the test!
