morning.... anyone know what sort of support i can expect for dysgraphia?

[hotchoc]

hi

my 7yo has been diagnosed with dyslexia but is waiting to see an ot to investigate the problems he has further. he can read well and is numerate his problem is that he cannot write with any fluidity and finds the letter formation hard despite being in P3 (Scotland).

he is a bright lad and i think that his dyslexia diagnosis is wrong and that he shows more signs of dysgraphia.

any comments/ ideas on how to help him, he is getting more aware of his problems, feels he is rubbish at everything and the gap between him and his classmates is growing.

thanks

hotchocx.

Handwriting is something you need to keep on top of, by that I mean do some practice every day and whenever you watch him write correct EVERY time he forms a letter incorectly. You are trying to create the correct muscle memory.

We printed off the writing guide from the Free Resources section on www.larkeducation.co.uk and laminated it so that our DS could have it as a reminder with him whenever he was writing.

Check that his pencil grip is ok and I would use a soft pencil so he doesn't have to grip too tight and press hard.

Make sure his posture is good too, sitting at a table with the paper he is writing on aligned with his writing forearm.

A bit of practice with you watching everyday will make a big difference eventually - keep at it, he is still very young.

thanks for the advice, off to look at the website now, how is your son's writing now?

hotchoc

His handwriting is MUCH better - certainly legible and it is speeding up. But again, you really need to keep observing and correcting him, not fashionable but really essential.

That's promising, i'll need to catch him at the right moment daily but it sounds worth the effort.

thanks for the info

hotchoc

Hi,

I joined this forum specially to answer your question. I am a Dyslexia Facilitator and work with children and adults who display an array of symptoms and dysgraphia is just one of them.

A dyslexic is a three dimensional picture thinker which means the think in pictures much easier than words. So if you ask them to think of 'cat', 'house', 'chair' for example they shave no problem. Ask them to think of 'the,' 'it,' 'was' then their picture thinking style gets confused because these words have no picture. Their mind then disorientates and they see other things on the page like 'was' instead of 'saw' or they reverse letter, omitt letters.

In dysgraphia one of the reasons they are unable to write is that when they are trying to visualise how a word is spelt they can sometimes have multiple images of that word. This is often indicated by the way they grip the pen/pencil so tightly.

Can I recommend you read a book called The Gift of Dyslexia by Ronald Davis. He explains how dormant neural pathways can also be responsible in dysgraphia but in fact Dyslexia, Dyscalculia (maths difficulties), Dyspraxia, Dysgraphia and ADD/HD all come from the same root problem that is why some of the symptoms overlap. Even more comforting is that they can all be corrected using his methods. I know this for a fact because my eldest boy had awful hand writing until he visited a Davis Dyslexia Facilitator. This was the main reason why I trained to help others. To find a local facilitator see the website www.davis-facilitators.co.uk

All the best

dyslexiahelp - please could you give a link to some peer-reviewed research about your methods? Thank you!

bump

bump from me too (interested)