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DS8 struggles to get any work done at all in school, in spite of an IEP that allows him to type or dictate his work (he has dysgraphia). When asked why, he says he has trouble finding the right keys and that he "just doesn't know what to write". The former appears to be a fluency, not visual, issue and we will attempt to address it with a typing tutor. The latter, however, appears to be a problem even when he is given a very specific topic. He is highly verbal and can give lengthy disquisitions on no end of topics, as well as tell elaborate stories. Were any of these oral offerings committed to paper, they would be well above grade (3) level. Yet even when dictating to a teacher, not typing, he gives disjointed sentence fragments that are far below grade level. And only gives that after countless nudges.

I have been trying to determine, entirely unsuccessfully, if the lack of new material (his classwork has been in subjects he exhausted on his own in previous years), his perfectionism, or anxiety is the key driver, or if this is a brand new problem that we have yet to label and address. I would be grateful for any suggestions/words of wisdom.

My kids hate doing them, but they've significantly benefited from highly structured graphic organizers. It appears to help separate the cognitive demands of coming up with ideas, composing, and physically producing the words.

What used to be commonly called "writer's block" and was said to come from staring at a fresh blank page was often cured by making a "sloppy copy" or rough draft.

If there is childhood perfectionism or anxiety, there are books which show readers how to free themselves from thought patterns which may not be serving them well. While insightful, these books are written gently for kids, in a style that is fun and engaging. Parents may wish to pre-read and decide if a resource may be a helpful tool for their child.

Anxiety
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....separation_anxiety_at_10.html#Post177942

Perfectionism
A book which seems to understand perfectionism very well and which many find supportive is "What To Do When Good Enough Isn't Good Enough". Another book you might like is "Perfectionism: What's Bad About Being Too Good". Here is an article from the Davidson Database, Interview with Thomas Greenspon on Perfectionsim.

Wishing you, your family, and your son all the best with this.

I'm dealing with a similar issue with my verbally strong, reading fanatic ds12. When faced with a writing assignment, even answering some questions, he has trouble beginning. Last night I talked with him about it and suggested giving himself permission to be less than brilliant. To begin with anything and go on from there. We'll see. He gets lots of practice so I'm hoping eventually he can move past his fear and perfectionism to be able to write his thoughts effectively and to push through blocks.

He was really put out recently at having to reveal PRIVATE thoughts and feelings for his LA class. Like what he loves, and fears, and dislikes, etc. Really fought that hard by insisting his thoughts and feelings were no one's business.
So I told him he can either look at it as an opportunity to get to know himself better and practice self-acceptance or he could practice his bs skills.

This sounds like a great idea.

CoastalMom - I am in the middle of a project this morning and don't have time to type out details, but fwiw, we had similar issues with our dysgraphic ds once we'd gotten him moved onto AT and able to get past the handwriting issues. In his case, he has an expressive language disorder related to written expression... and it just wasn't something we were able to "see" until we'd given him the accommodations to get past the roadblock caused by dysgraphia. A speech/language eval pinpointed what the issue was, and he's been working with an SLP for several years and has made good progress.

I don't know that your ds has the same type of issue, just wanted to throw it out there as a semi-similar experience And... if you pm me I can tell you some of the tips that our SLP passed along to us to help ds get his thoughts out in writing. They are tips etc that can work for anyone, not only kids who have expressive language challenges Our SLP has done a lot of trial-and-error with a scattering of different techniques to see what works for ds - you might want to try something similar. Everyone at school just wanted to pin graphic organizers all over ds' desk and glue them to his face (sorry for the sarcasm!) but he was lost even with the organizers.

There is also cool software that you might want to check out - they used to offer a free trail period. Kidspiration for early elementary, Inspiration for older kids. Kid/Inspiration allows you to brainstorm in a graphic-organizer mode where you can move thought bubbles arounnd etc, then once you like what you've got you can push a button and turn it into an outline which you can also easily tweak/move objects around and add info, and then when you're happy with that you've got a good starting place for writing paragraphs.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Yes-- and also, structuring writing prompts to be either clearly right/wrong sequentially/temporally, or narrative in a linear fashion.

DD was VERY anxious about her (admittedly poor) organization as a writer for a very long time. Every essay, every term paper, we faced the same problem: she knew a LOT about the topic-- could have easily talked to someone for an hour without interruption and little repetition. Writing it coherently was another matter entirely.

She had a great deal of trouble even with graphic organizers-- it just wasn't the way her brain worked.

So we used timelines. This meant that every prompt for a period of about four years, she had to find SOME way of organizing it into a sequential thing-- timelines, linear narrative, biography, etc. It really helped to reinforce that need to pre-write and organize, which she otherwise refused to cooperate with.

She also had a tendency to fill outline style organizers with complete sentences, and then have such a bare-bones or non-fluent finished written product that it didn't reflect either voice or knowledge at all. I still chalk this one up to laziness, in part. She *can* do it now-- she just doesn't bother some of the time.

Move on from timelines to Venn diagrams and compare-and-contrast as a "form."

I find that doing those two things lays the groundwork to be able to use graphic organizers more proficiently. Initially, my DD couldn't figure out HOW to arrange ideas into a logical heirarchy on paper, which made even graphic organizers a disaster.

Her perfectionism, of course, only made things worse, because she was singularly uncooperative with this deficiency, given that she didn't want to do anything that she wasn't good at-- and BOY, was she not good at organizing her thoughts in written form.

Ds is the same way. Completely wants to avoid something he thinks he's not good at or really is struggling with. Good for your DD for pushing through that.

Thanks for the great ideas, everyone. DS is supposed to be using graphic organizers as part of his IEP, but I don't think that's happened. I'll download Inspiration to see if that helps. I'm going to try timelines, as well, since my brain also doesn't mesh with graphic organizers (hope I haven't passed that on!).

KADmom my DS hates sharing personal thoughts in language arts, but it never occurred to me to suggest BS as a way around it. He will love, love, love that idea, thanks!

Polarbear I was wondering about an expressive language issue. I'll pm you, thanks.

"So we used timelines. This meant that every prompt for a period of about four years, she had to find SOME way of organizing it into a sequential thing-- timelines, linear narrative, biography, etc."

You know, this reminds me of a recent conversation about the importance of writing instruction. The use of graphic organizers has helped mold my kids' thinking into something that is more, well, organized. My DD is now able to write without one. DS clearly still needs a significant amount of more time with the graphic organizer to establish this habit of thinking. It sounds like with HK's daughter, the use of timelines helped mold her thinking into something significantly more sequential. These seem key tools for cognitive development, whether we cast it as writing instruction or not.

Just thinking out loud.

"DS is supposed to be using graphic organizers as part of his IEP, but I don't think that's happened."
Then you need to follow up on that with the teacher and IS. If something in the IEP isn't being implemented, don't simply try something else. Fix the IEP problem. If your experiments with Inspiration are successful, but all means bring it to the table, but don't abandon something just because it hasn't been implemented. Follow up.