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DD6.5 was recently diagnosed with dysgraphia and DCD. She is in first grade except for math, where she goes to second. The volume of writing in math is very difficult her (code for saying sometimes she is still working on writing out the first answer when they are finishing the worksheet, yet ask her to give you verbal answers and she whizzes through it) and we recently met with the school for 504 accommodations. To give you a sense of what we are dealing with, they were not familiar with dysgraphia.

I have read through a number of old posts on various aspects of dysgraphia, and they have been very helpful. My question is this: knowing what you know now, if you had unlimited time and funds (we don't, but I just want to know all possibilities), what would you do for your child? I am trying to get the school involved, but it appears that a lot will be on us. She is already in private OT once a week, and we did HWT all summer.

So, what kind of equipment would you use? (Desktop, iPad, iPad with keyboard, etc?) How would you introduce your child to keyboarding/typing? What apps would you invest in?

Are there certain schools out there that do this really well for this type of 2e child?

What do you wish you had known from the beginning? Is there a support group for those times you want to cry?

Thank you!

I agree with everything spaghetti said. I have one thing to add but I have no idea if it'll be effective. My son also has dysgraphia and DCD. I came across this book earlier this week and we're giving it a try.

http://www.jkp.com/jkpblog/2011/04/art-geoff-platt-beating-dyspraxia/

Basically, it is an 8 week long strength training program for kids with dyspraxia (term used in UK for DCD). DS9 and I are doing it together.

Thank you spaghetti! Yes, we've gone private for everything so far. Although I have to credit her K teacher for noticing there was a problem, even though I thought she was too young to worry about it back then. This will be a work in progress for us and the school as we discover what works best I guess.
Also thanks for the link KJP, I will check it out!

My DD is now 11 and was first identified with a multitude of LD's - including dysgraphia - at about the same age your DD is now. We started out with major obstacles, got major support, had more obstacles from folks who didn't get it and eventfully got our school district to buy in 100% with what almost amounts to unlimited time and funds. Not sure if it will work for you but here's what we did:

- I started off literally *begging* our pediatrician for a referral for what appeared to me to be obvious hand-eye coordination and fine motor issues. It took 3 1/2 years (until her 5th birthday) to get the referral. What I learned - don't play nice. If you think she needs it fight like your life depends on it and don't take no for an answer.

- we started with private OT 2-3 times a week. They couldn't focus on life skills because they were desperately trying to play catch up to get her ready for school. What I learned - push for school related services to take place in school so that private services can focus on life skills. (DD only started doing buttons, snaps and zippers in about 4th grade and tying her shoes in 5th grade.)

- push for all the accommodations she needs. ALL of them (even if there is pushback). We started with scribing then having the spec Ed teacher review and amend *all* worksheets. ie Instead of copying the words from a word bank she would label each word with a letter and DD would write that letter. Instead of copying sentences she would write just the changes or edits. Whenever possible she would give answers orally or find a way other than writing to answer the question, ie with manipulatives for math.

- push, push, push for AT. I started requesting keyboarding instruction in 1st grade but the very nice but woefully uninformed OT blocked it saying that it was "developmentally inappropriate" to introduce keyboarding prior to 5th grade. DD needed it more than NT kids and it would take her longer to learn than NT kids so this was a load of hogwash. We got an AT eval in second grade that recommended an iPad throughout her school day as well explicit instruction in keyboarding and voice to text. In third grade we were awarded 3 1/2 hours per week of OT as compensatory services for the delay in getting the AT up and running.

- DD was awarded OOD placement at a spec Ed school starting in third grade. They have been masterful at remediating her deficits. She has come as far as she will be able to come in terms of handwriting. She can form letters and write a brief thank you note or birthday card but it will not be her means of communicating ideas. For that she relies on typing and voice to text.

- some dysgraphic kids do better with cursive because the pencil stays in the page. I think some if not most end up developing their own print/cursive hybrid and that's fine if it works for them.

- I think CoWriter is the most important app DD uses as it allows her to move back and forth between typing and voice to text and has context based word prediction. There are so many apps she has used you will probably need to ask specific questions I can run by her for more recommendations. A properly done AT eval should provide a personalized list of recommended apps.

The parents here are probably going to be the best support you can find. I have gotten most of my ideas here, as well as support and a shoulder to cry on as needed. Many of us can relate so vent away and ask all the questions you want. We are here to help. Paying it forward...

Excellent, thank you Pemberley. I have requested an OT and AT eval at school and am waiting on that. I found snap type from one of the prior thread recommendations, so we have been trialing that with her homework. I will check into cowriter. Is there a good program to start teaching keyboarding at home?
Thanks!

Fabulous advice above! I agree that the biggest thing is to educate the teachers and school.

Dysgraphia is one of those things where it is so easy for them (and you!) to think the child could do it better, they will do it better, if they just try harder and practice more. In my own experience, the crucial concept is to understand automaticity. It's not that the child can't form the letters - actually, some dysgraphic children can make lovely words - but only when they slowly draw them as a picture. What they can't do is quickly and automatically write out letters and words without much thought. For all the other kids in the classroom, making letters and words gets easier and easier, and they think about it less and less. After a few years, they don't think about it at all - virtually no brain power is going into making the letters, so it's freed up to take on harder tasks. With a dysgraphic, in contrast, that automaticity and freeing up of brain resources never happens. Instead, a whole lot of brain power goes into thinking about how to form each letter, which letter goes where, not dropping any letters on the way by, getting them lined up in a row and spaced out correctly, etc. All this uses up a huge chunk of the brain - which way does the line go on the "d" again? Where am I supposed to put that space? Is this supposed to be a capital, and how do I make a capital F anyways, and is there a picture of one on the wall somewhere I can copy? So unlike all the other kids in the classroom, that brain power isn't available to be thinking about what they actually want to write about. They are trying to do the more complex task, while also simultaneously putting all their energy into the mechanics of writing.

If teachers really, truly understand the trade-off the child has to make - I can write or I can think, pick *one* - then they are much less likely to think they are helping the child by "making them practice". Because how can they get better at it if they don't practice? But the reality is, with this particular neurobiological deficit, kids may get better at compensating, but for the most part, the automaticity doesn't much change. The trade-off is ALWAYS with them, no matter how much they practice. So really, deeply buying into the idea of by-passing handwriting is important. Then teachers will be more ready and able to get creative about avoiding handwriting where it isn't needed.

And as you've seen on older threads, there's lots of ways of doing it. Especially for younger kids, it's often not about the tech. Oral reports and responses; pictures, diagrams and flowcharts; posters; presentations (DS fell in love with PowerPoint by grade 2!); make it into a song or skit; collage and art.... there are tons of ways to demonstrate your learning above and beyond simply writing it down. That said though, I totally agree with the suggestions to get as comfortable with technology as much and as early as possible. Keyboarding, voice recognition, graphic organizer software - all are huge help, but take a lot of practice (here's where you want to focus on practice!) before they become more help than hindrance.

Hi ChasingTwo,

You've received a lot of excellent advice above - I'm sorry I won't have time to chime in with more details until later - busy day here! I do have a ds with both DCD and dysgraphia, who's now in high school so I'm happy to share our experiences, and also will add that this has been the best place I've found for sharing and receiving support from other parents.


My ds used cowriter when he was in mid-upper elementary and it was wonderful for him, at that point in time. It increased his ability to produce written output signficantly, but more significantly made it possible for him to work on content vs having to spend significant amounts of time checking spelling. The quality of his grammar punctuation etc also improved dramatically, not because he had challenges with those things, but because it got him past his dysgraphic challenges. So overall, best thing about cowriter for our ds was lack of need to revise work!

That said, he left cowriter behind because he didn't like that it took over the function of the arrow keys on the right side of the keyboard, and that really hindered him in some way. I never fully understood it, but by the 7th grade he was adamant he didn't want to use cowriter anymore. There's another word prediction program out there for the laptop - I don't remember the name of it anymore, our neuropsych recommended it - but I think it had the same issue with arrow key function.

Our ds switched to an iPad in 7th grade, and the word prediction that's built into the iPad worked for the most part just as well for him as cowriter. (which is amazing to me... because it totally drives me nuts lol!).


I don't know if it even exists anymore, but all of my kids learned how to type using BBC Mat Typing - two of my kids had a teacher who used it in class, and our neuropsych initially recommended it for ds. The one piece of advice we were given and that proved really useful re typing - don't require that your child learn traditional touch typing - it's tough for small hands to master, and it's not necessary to get an improvement on output from typing over handwriting. We were told to just let ds figure out a finger-key system on is own, even if it looks like hunt-and-peck, and that has worked well for him. None of my now-teens use traditional touch typing but my nt teens type relatively fast and ds types not-so-fast but that's due to the limitations of DCD more so than typing system.

Hope some of that helps - I'll come back later with a few more tips.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thank you, platypus and polarbear. It's wonderful to be able to hear from people who have been through this.

To piggyback on the idea of stressing lack of automaticity in explaining this to people my go to has been to state in a very matter of fact way "With dysgraphia she completely lacks the ability to develop automaticity. Writing a word or a sentence is never automatic. Each time she has to think 'OK a letter 'N' that's a line down, then a line at an angle and then another straight line.' She can either write or she can think but she can't do both at the same time. We prefer to have her think and use voice to text or typing." This straightforward explanation - leaving no room for debate - seems to get the message across.

I will say DD's second grade teacher would not or could not understand or implement her IEP. She kept insisting that DD 'try herself first' and 'ask for help when you get tired'. We spent hour upon hour in IEP meetings drafting and redrafting making the IEP requirements tighter. She. Just. Couldn't. Get. It. DD ended up with a full time para to scribe for her. I think it was totally unnecessary but this woman just couldn't stop insisting that DD do things like this. In that situation the best analogy I came up with was "Oh so when you have a kid in a wheelchair you don't let them use it - right? You tell them to first drag themselves down the hall as far as they can and when they get tired you will bring their wheelchair. Then when they join the rest of the class at pe they have missed half the class just getting there and are so exhausted from dragging themselves down the hall they can't participate in the class anyway. I'm not really sure how this is helpful or allowing the child to access their education..." That works for most people. Finding the right analogy can work wonders, I think the second grade teacher was being intentionally obtuse...

We had no luck teaching DD to type at home. We bought her a desktop computer with a huge monitor and color coded keyboard. She totally stressed out with any typing program than had a timed component. But in her case she has SO many disabilities impacting her. She needed to be explicitly taught in OT starting with how to scan the keyboard. Visual processing issues, slow processing speed and dyslexia muddied the waters for her so your DD will likely have an easier time.

When DD started at the spec Ed school one of the first things she leaned was how to make PowerPoint presentations. I literally cried the first time I saw one - it was the first time I felt she would actually have the chance to show what she knows.

Now DD writes All. The. Time. She is constantly writing scripts or songs or stories. Constantly. We found that the built in voice to text on iPad 2 and higher works well. But you have to make sure she has wifi. When the AT specialist gave us the specifications for what to buy her she forgot that one important detail. This means that we didn't include cellular when we bought it so she can use it at home but not in the car or on the schoolbus or in a park or in a restaurant, etc.

We just returned home from a one day trip to a "living museum" where DD did research for a school project on a local Native American tribe. She typed out her questions in advance and spent the day interviewing the interpreters, taking photos and really experiencing their lives. One problem I noted was that she had to pay close attention to each person as she spoke to them and was unable to jot down notes as needed. DH stood behind her and wrote notes himself that she will be able to refer to. DD has an amazing memory but this is still one skill that she will need to develop. I'm really not sure where to go with it. I guess this will be an ever evolving process so you are just laying the groundwork now.

That is great news that your DD is doing so well now, Pemberley. It seems like elementary is the toughest time while everything gets figured out but I will keep after it.