Alternatives to handwriting? Notepad style app with qwerty keys.

[MellowMarshmallow]

ds2 (7) has terrible trouble with handwriting. Following an appointment at our CPOC clinic, his doctor (a behavioral optometrist) is writing a report, part of which says that although he can write for short periods, any work that requires producing a lot of content should be typed or spoken into a dictaphone.

He has a LeapPad with a notepad on that has qwerty keyboard. He is good at tapping out messages with the stylus. I was wondering if instead of now trying to teach him to type, there was an Android or Apple app that would allow similar style of writing. Or if you know of any alternatives to handwriting. At the moment he often has an adult sit with him who scribes his ideas. This isn't ideal as there are large chunks of time when he can't work because he is waiting for the adult to get around to him (although thinking off the top of my head, maybe he could use that time to sketch out a picture of what he wants to say), but also he is becoming reliant on the encouragement that adult brings with them, and I worry he will become less independent.

Any suggestions much appreciated. Thanks.

[fairgame]

DS is a writing refuser and used to have an alphasmart to type up his work.
is.alphasmart.co.uk/neo2/
I think he could also link it up the interactive class whiteboard as well but i'm not 100% on that. I know he used to link up the class computer to print out his work.
He tried laptops and voice recording on the ipad but always went back to the alphasmart. His LSA would sometimes scribe or tandem write but DS would get a bit lazy and let the LSA do all the work for him, plus it was difficult to assess his spelling ability when his work was scribed for him.

[MellowMarshmallow]

Thanks all.

Just looked at Clicker 5 and it looks like something the SENCO mentioned they were using with another child so maybe already have it in school.

[jThompson]

D's used clicker 6 last year and on the whole we were quite happy with it. To get the most from it needed the teacher to do some set up. At the start of a new topic she would add a dictionary of topic specific words. It was noticeable when she was off that his work and the set up didn't happen his work went downhill. One of the other key features was to read thevtext back to him. I'm off to fight for it back again, this year he's been given an iPad. Its great that he can have it on his desk and work with the other kids but having finally got home some work hes done this term we've realised he needs the text reading back to him. Basicly he's accepted whater the spell check has offered and doesn't know its not the word he wanted. I can't make much sense of the story I have.

[JellyCurls]

We are trialing Clicker 6 to prevent DD writing too much at school (hypermobility, low muscle tone & ataxic cp). She loves it and teacher says it means she can get work done at correct pace and get to fun stuff in class and isn't exhausted. By using this she's moved back into top groups, just hope local authority will fund it after xmas

[MellowMarshmallow]

Fingers crossed clicker is what they have at school then. I'm quite nervous about the idea as I don't think they were keen on any adaptions but after 3 years of OT and hand strengthening exercises it's just not getting any better.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. nice to know he's not the only one needing this support.