Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Dysgraphia or handwriting question

I've done some reading up on dysgraphia and other disorders that affect handwriting, and am curious about something. Would it be surprising for someone with dysgraphia to be good at art/drawing when working patiently in an unstructured setting? To have decent drawings, but all text surrounding it to be difficult to read, letters poorly formed and widely spaced, and unable to organize text very neatly on a page, unless copying their own work painstakingly? I just wonder, if one is dysgraphic, would they dislike creating art?

This goes with mentions of feeling slow with writing (and thus feeling hurried and being more sloppy, or writing less thoroughly than they're capable of expressing because it would take too much time to write more), and not understanding criticism of their 'neatness' (feeling insulted that it's not readable to others).

Basically, at what point is it considered a poor handwriting ability (or brain too fast for hands) vs a problem that necessitates intervention/accommodation?

Not at all unusual. You should see some of my DD's work from a few years ago. Her lettering was unreadable, but her art was already better than anything either parent could do.

Totally normal. Handwriting can be affected not only by pure fine-motor coordination skills, but, even more importantly for dysgraphics, deficits in automaticity. It's not necessarily that they can't physically form the letters, it's that they have to draw the letters consciously every time, rather than thinking about the language they wish to communicate, and letting background processes take care of letter formation, spelling, and mechanics/conventions. NT writers don't -draw- letters, we -write- them.

Ditto to everything aeh said

Plus I'll add that with drawing, you aren't having to recreate something learned, and your pencil doesn't have to leave the paper often like it does when you are, ahem, drawing letters (which is what dysgraphics do). My 15 year old dysgraphic ds will tell you (as if it's as normal as sunshine) that he likes writing numbers better than letters because there are only 10 numbers you have to memorize how to draw, and there are more than twice as many letters. That same ds, who has had remediation and OT for handwriting, has handwriting that looks the same as it did in 2nd grade, when it didn't look very good. When he uses handwriting, he writes at about the same speed as a 2nd grader even though he's in high school. Yet he is an amazing artist and loves to draw


This all sounds very much like dysgraphia.


This, of course, is going to vary from child to child based on personality, but if a child has dysgraphia that goes undiagnosed and unaccommodated, it leads to the potential of great frustration, anxiety, loss of self esteem when comparing their work product with other students at school.


It's not that there's a "point" at which sloppy handwriting becomes sloppy "enough" that it's considered dysgraphia. Dysgraphia isn't an issue of sloppy handwriting, it's a neurological-based disability that impacts the ability to develop automaticity, which most frequently shows up as an inability to master handwriting. If you suspect your child has dysgraphia then the next step is to have him/her evaluated. If he/she has dysgraphia, you'll want to get accommodations in place as well as some basic remediation asap. If you're still wondering if it's something to wonder about rather than act on, ask yourself this question: if you suspected dyslexia, would you ponder at what point difficulty reading becomes dyslexia or would you have your child assessed for possible dyslexia?

What you've written above sounds very much like potential dysgraphia. You can also look and see if you see other potential dysgraphia signs: poor pencil grip, awkward posture when using handwriting, uneven pencil pressure on paper, refusal to do written work, wrist pain, holding wrist or elbow while writing, letter formation etc not improving at the rate of school peers, letters or numbers reversed or switched, etc. You can also ask your child to write the full alphabet, upper and lower case. Time them while they are doing this and watch how they form their letters. Are they starting most of the letters at the top? Do they seem to have to stop to think about how to write any of them? Do they remember how to write all of them or do they make mistakes or reversals? When they are finished, divide the # of letters written by the total # of minutes, then google letters per minute rate for your child's grade or age. Does your child's result seem low?

What happens when your child has to write a sentence or paragraph? (I'm not sure how old he/she is so I don't know what ability level for writing they should be at.. but if they are far along enough in age/grade to be composing sentences and paragraphs think this through) Does he/she spell correctly when writing? Use punctuation correctly? Use capital and lower case letters correctly and consistently? Does he/she form letters the same way every time or not? One of the biggest impacts of dysgraphia is that working memory is all devoted to figuring out how to form letters while writing, so there's nothing left over for thinking about proper spelling, punctuation, etc. Which leads to my last question - is your child's written output equivalent in quantity and detail to his/her verbal output? Dysgraphics tend to have a notable difference.

If he/she is dysgraphic, you'll want to start accommodations and possibly a few interventions/remediations depending on your child. Dysgraphia isn't something that dysgraphic outgrow or that goes away someday. It *is* something that is easy to accommodate, especially in our modern world where there are keyboards everywhere

Best wishes,

polarbear

You guys are so helpful! I just had never even heard of dysgraphia before reading this forum, and DH didn't know either, but he seems to think good handwriting is overrated in the digital age. I see a lot of my DS9 in the characteristics, but not with a huge overwhelming certainty. I can see how he might get by, but that doesn't feel right. I think even if he doesn't have dysgraphia, he would benefit from some OT. He also has vision issues (extremely farsighted, plus bifocals, but has never had a developmental vision exam), but I don't think that explains this.

I started thinking about how he writes, and I will have to watch him to observe closer. There seems to be some automaticity, and spelling is good, he doesn't complain of pain (but he's quiet about stuff like that), but he's never liked handwriting, nor coloring things in. But his handwriting is worse than his sister, DS7. Some of his letters come from bottom, like a (which might look like an s or a loose g), his v and r look the same sometimes, and capitals and smalls are at different heights intermixed, spacing between letters and words is wide, hard to distinguish word space. He loves blank paper but then there's no clear baseline. And his written output is not equivalent to his verbal output. With 'neatness' and depth starting to count more in presentations, it's become apparent that the writing doesn't match his understanding.

We are having him evaluated -- waiting to be scheduled currently. I guess it was difficult to reconcile the idea that he's 9 (am I just expecting too much) and very artistic, with the fact that he says he can't write differently and gets frustrated.

It sounds like you're on the right track longcut - getting an eval might help and certainly won't hurt anything


It's not something you hear much about - everyone knows what dyslexia is but I'd never ever heard of dysgraphia until our ds was diagnosed with it. He had all of the classic symptoms of dysgraphia but my dh and I had absolutely no idea that was the reason he was turning into an anxious kid who hated school and refused to do homework.


My dh and I agree with that - and so do so many other parents even of nt kids that I know. I will never forget when my ds was way back in kindergarten years ago how many parents at the school thought that bothering to teach handwriting was obsolete because none of the parents ever used it. I also will never forget how much complaining his school did when we first suggested he use voice-to-text, yet every single person working in the school office was using it all the time! And that was long before everyone was talking to their phones to send email and text messages

Living in a high-tech age is a great thing for *adult* dysgraphics and also dysgraphic kids in terms of accommodations. The catch is that in spite of all the technology, students are still being required to rely on handwriting in school, even at the high school level there are still writing assignments that teachers require to be completed in handwriting. Another gotcha is that it's important to know that the sloppy handwriting has a root cause other than just laziness or whatever because there are inevitably going to be times a dysgraphic student has to write *something* and other kids or teachers might make a judgment about how much that student cares based on the appearance of their handwriting or even how smart they are. For instance, my ds has to be able to sign his names and occasionally write in his address on forms. If you knew nothing about him and just watched the slowness with which he writes his name and saw what his signature looks like compared to most 15 year olds... you might find yourself thinking he's not exactly a high IQ kid.



It probably doesn't explain the handwriting issues, but there are two types of dysgraphia - one has a visual processing root, the other has a fine-motor root. Our ds has fine-motor dysgraphia, and you can see the impact in some other fine motor skills. There are also some types of dysgraphia where spelling isn't impacted - I don't remember the exact differentiation, but if you google around looking for types of dysgraphia you should be able to find a description easily. I think there's one with categories of dysgraphia on the NCLD website.


This all sounds exactly like my dysgraphic ds, even the v and r looking alike Our ds had OT for handwriting when he was in 3rd grade, and it helped with legibility, but it didn't really make a lasting difference.


One thing you can do now that might be helpful - start collecting examples of the difference in his written and verbal output. It will be helpful to have these examples both to show whoever evaluates him and also when you are advocating for accommodations.


It is a weird thing, isn't it? But it makes sense when you look at how different writing and drawing really are - they aren't the same skill and don't draw on the same brain-connections. I also think that there's something to think through re links between dyslexia and dysgraphia - they tend to happen in common in some families (including my dh's family - ds isn't dyslexic but he has dyslexic cousins and also dysgraphic cousins). You'll find that there are quite a few professionals who feel that dyslexic people often tend to be visual-spatial thinkers and often talented artists. Our ds definitely is a visual-spatial thinker - he sees everything in his head as a picture. Our dyslexic dd also appears to be a visual thinker but not necessarily very talented at art. (I don't see pictures in my head. I'm not sure I "see" anything in my head lol!).

Hang in there!

polarbear

I just wanted to update that, yay, we've finally been scheduled for a comprehensive eval over summer and I'm pretty excited to see some data to help guide us going forward. Kind of just riding out the end of school year for now. I'll do what you suggested and collect examples -- thanks for the tip! :-)