I suggested that anything over a paragraph, he needs to use some sort of AT.
Anything under a paragraph and he needs to write neatly.
FWIW, I'd suggest anything over a short 1-2 sentence answer should be keyboarded. If he's still getting used to keyboarding, scribing can be included as an accommodation, but you don't want him scribing long-term, the goal is to work independently.
He shouldn't be allowed to turn in sloppy, illegible work. Even his math worksheets and tests are illegible.
Use those illegible pieces of classwork as evidence he is not able to fully communicate his knowledge using handwriting. It's not that "he shouldn't be allowed" - just keep focusing on the school needs to provide him a way to show his knowledge.
No one likes the idea of having him re-do his work because he will get upset and resist doing the work.
Again, the thing to focus on isn't that he gets upset and resists doing the work if he's asked to re-do - of course he does, and most kids would. The thing to focus on is what the limitations on his abilities are due to his disability. That sounds depressing in some ways, but it's reality. He can't rely on handwriting to show his knowledge, therefore he shouldn't be put in the position of having to use handwriting to show his knowledge.
They claim they have tried AT but
1. He doesn't like it and claims it is too fussy. They have tried having him keyboard, SnapType for math (where they take pictures of his math worksheets and then he can type his answers--DS claims this is too fussy and it's faster to just write).
We found that it was much easier for us to test AT at home and then recommend it to the school rather than relying on the school to come up with AT that worked for our ds. This isn't exactly how it's all *supposed* to work - but it worked, and in the end, that's what mattered. We did find a local resource group that was able to help us try out software and devices/apps that we didn't have at home (found them through wrightslaw), and I also picked up quite a bit of info through online researching. We were also helped by a private OT eval looking specifically at AT. It would have been nice and less expensive in the case of the one OT eval if we could have had the school provide all of it, but we didn't have a school willing or a school district AT rep that was all that knowledgable re dysgraphia at that point in time, so it was well worth the time and effort to do it ourselves.
Speech to Text doesn't pick up a lot of his speech because of his articulation and/or prosody issues and he doesn't like it.
He's still really young to be using speech-to-text. Even my high school ds doesn't necessarily like it (and yet many of his non-DCD friends use it all the time lol!).
I feel like the people on his team don't really know what they are doing. They may try something for a couple days, DS grumbles about it, and they give up. I mentioned having an AT eval a couple times and they just sort of dismiss that suggestion saying they have tried things.
Trying things without a plan to put the AT in place, collect data, and then evaluate results isn't an AT eval. On the one hand, the school needs to do an AT eval. On the other hand, when we finally were able to get an official AT eval through our school, we already had a good idea of things that would and wouldn't work for our ds, and the AT eval was going to stretch things out unthinkably long (from ds' perspective) because the AT evaluator insisted we try one piece of tech at a time, try it out over several months, and prove that it works and was necessary. It wasn't as cut and dry as you'd think to prove that a specific piece of AT was necessary and "worked" - particularly when our ds was still only 10 (at the time) and also had issues with generating words due to an expressive language disorder. Even things like testing co-writer, which were so obviously useful to ds at the time, felt like they might fall through the cracks if subjected to the way the district wanted to collect data in order to prove they were needed.
He is due for a 3-year re-evaluation in the fall but they want to do it now. Any thoughts?
I would ask why they want to do it now, and consider the reasons. I'd also consider when the eval would be most useful and less disruptive to your ds' school schedule. And... if it was me, I'd seriously consider waiting until fall, and in the meantime try everything you can at home and over the summer to get a good idea of what *you* think will work best for your ds.
Best wishes,
polarbear