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    cathy m Offline OP
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    Ok, I was playing around with both my kids, and ended up doing a timed writing test for fun. He had no idea, I was trying to gather information. I had him write the ABC's for a minute to see how many letters per second he could write. He is 11, just turned in October, and was able to write 55 letters per minute. From what I can tell from googling it. This is normal? However, there was a huge range. My 7th grade daughter was able to do 100 plus. I also pulled up some information about pencil grip. He has the four finger grip. I am not sure if this is something that is a problem or not.

    There is definitely a visual spacial thing going on with his writing, lack of margins, lots of space between words, large letters, some mix up of lower and upper case, not being able to stay on the line without alot of effort. He also takes a long long time to copy things. However, if I read them to him and he just writes, he does much better. Reading off of one paper and copying on to the other, is an extremely exausting time consuming task for him.

    What do you think? Just dyslexia with visual spacial things or possibly some dysgraphia sprinkled in?

    I'm trying to pinpoint the "fatigue" thing. They asked me about add and adhd yesterday, but I really don't think he has any of that. I think he is tired and zoned out because of what you describle polarbear. He doesn't know how to even get started with what they want him to do. I had a long conversation with the school about that too. Give him smaller more manageable tasks he can complete and be successful at and built up. Don't say, write this..and wonder why he is daydreaming.

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    Have you considered a vision test from a Vision Therapy doctor? My 8 yr old had some problems with writing, staying on the lines, not seeing all of the numbers in a math problem, etc, and she was diagnosed with Strabismus (very slight) and a convergance problem. She's getting eye therapy and has improved quite a bit. Just a thought that it might be eyes and not motor skills or brain-related.
    http://www.covd.org/?page=Symptoms

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    cathy m Offline OP
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    Yes, I did have vision tested with a regular optometrist. Nothing was found. He does really well in math, no problems.

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    cathym, I don't have time to google around, but did a quick search and the first link I found re lpm showed 55 lpm to be 4th grade avg level.

    FWIW, I have a dd who has vision issues (muscle weakness, very similar to strabismus), and she tested a-ok at the regular optometrist with 20/20 vision in 3rd grade, but was struggling with reading in school. She went through a neuropsych eval and the neurospcyh's firs comment, when looking at her handwriting samples (before the actual testing) was "Oh wow, you have another child with dysgraphia!" - due to irregular spacing and generally very messy looking large print (this is the same neuropsych who diagnosed my ds who does actually have dysgraphia). DD's actual testing showed she did *not* have dysgraphia but had a vision issue - she totally bombed two of the WISC subtests that rely heavily on vision, and one of the Beery VMI subtests. If your ds hasn't had the Beery VMI, it might be really useful to separate out whether or not there are either fine motor or visuo-motor challenges. Both can cause dysgraphia or other challenges that potentially impact handwriting, but knowing which is at the root of the challenge is really helpful in approaching how to remediate and also in setting up accommodations.

    FWIW, my dd with the vision issues didn't appear to have any issues in math at all - in fact, it was her favorite subject at the time (she's since changed her mind lol!).

    polarbear

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    Originally Posted by DeeDee
    I will add that if you're thinking dysgraphia, that word can also be too narrow. We have one who is not technically dysgraphic, but sure looks like it-- it's actually Developmental Coordination Disorder and ADHD that cause most of his issues.

    I also wanted to come back to this (again!) to mention something I didn't think to mention previously - it's really helpful to have the neuropsych eval and be able to know - is it dysgraphia, is it DCD, is it something else... For instance, most students with dysgraphia are able to use typing as an accommodation and they take off and fly with typing. For my ds with DCD, the DCD impacts his typing ability as well as his handwriting ability - so typing *is* faster than handwriting and it is an accommodation he uses and needs, but it doesn't give him speed, and we've been told he'll need to move to voice-to-text eventually.

    polarbear

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    cathy m Offline OP
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    Thanks everyone. This is very helpful. I really knew so little about the testing when I got it done over a year ago. I received the test results and diagnosis of dyslexia, but never really understood the individual testing results that much. I am now looking at the additional challenges we have had as he gets older and what is not being corrected by itself. We do have intervention for dyslexia, Wilson Method, but have done nothing else for any other issue.

    So, help me with this. I know he didn't get a "dysgraphia" screening. His processing speed shows up as 67th percentile total, comprised of 37%ile visual matching, decision speed 88th, and rapid picture naming 42nd. The diagnosed him as dyslexic based on large discrepency between IQ and reading performance, decoding, spelling etc. There are more tests on this report. However, what does this processing speed mean?

    How do they test for ADD? Is processing speed part of it? I do notice him zoning out and me having to repeat directions to him. I just thought it was an 11 year old boy thing. I have to repeat myself alot. They see that at school too sometimes.

    Thanks for the info about DCD and vision testing. I am trying to get an idea of what to look for because it seems like more is going on than just dyslexia and reading.

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    It sounds like your ds had the WJ-III Cognitive Abilities test from the names of the subtests you mentioned. My ds has had both the WISC and the WJ-III Cog, so here's what we saw that pointed to dysgraphia in each:

    WISC - Processing Speed score (combined score), Coding was low (around an 8, median is 10, all other subtest scores for ds were way high).

    WJ-III - Most scores were really really high, some were scattered around but still high, and visual matching was down around 34th percentile.

    I don't remember the specifics of the visual matching subtest, but I believe it's the test on the WJ-III that most closely correlates with the coding subtest on the WISC. The coding subtest is timed, and requires the child to copy symbols that have a directional component to them. It's not an easy task for a dysgraphic child. I don't know that it would be an issue for a dyslexic person - my dd who has a dyslexia diagnosis actually gets a relatively high score on this type of test.

    If I have time later today I'll pull out my ds' WJ-III test scores and see what his scores were for rapid picture naming and decision speed.

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    The diagnosed him as dyslexic based on large discrepency between IQ and reading performance, decoding, spelling etc.

    Reading performance is measured from the achievement tests not the cognitive tests (IQ is derived from the cognitive WJ-III). There are typically additional reading-skill-specific tests for decoding, spelling etc in a dyslexia screening.

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    How do they test for ADD? Is processing speed part of it?

    My understanding (and 2 of my kids have been screened for ADHD, my ds has been screened three times), is that a low processing speed score isn't used to diagnose ADHD, but it is often lower than other subtest scores in children who have ADHD. However, it can be lower for many other reasons too.

    I am sorry I can't remember back to the beginning of this thread - but did your dd have private testing when she was diagnosed with dyslexia or school testing? If she hasn't had a private neuropsych eval, it might be really helpful to pursue one.

    Best wishes,

    polarbear


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    cathy m Offline OP
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    The dyslexia was diagnosed with a private neuropsych evaluation. I really went there with mostly reading issues, but that was end of 3rd/early 4th grade. We were screened for ADD but they didn't think further screening should be pursued. The writing problems weren't really looked into at that time. Now his school is asking if we screened for ADD. I really don't think that is the issue.

    Issues in school are:

    writing
    reading - decoding/spelling
    spelling
    grammar
    daydreaming/zoning out
    organization
    turning in work

    It seems like lots of diagnoses have similar symptoms. I think maybe switching to keyboarding might be a good idea for him. Also, changing the expectations and helping him with organization.

    I really don't want to pay for additional testing, but will if my son would benefit from another therapy. Also, I just checked, my vision screening did check for those issued. My sister is an optometrist, so it was easy to ask her smile

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