Has anyone used an OT to improve handwriting?

[anecessaryevil]

DS (nearly 9) has always had problems with handwriting, although the letters and joins are fairly well formed, he seems to have problems with sizing and spacing within words. The overall result is very scruffy and the script is very large.

He does not appear to have any other problems, met all his early milestones and is doing very well academically. What he writes is very good and he actually enjoys writing stories.

However, even he is getting very disillusioned with his handwriting and is beginning to give up that it will ever get any better. We tried 'write from the start', to no avail and when I look at his first attempts at joined up writing 3 years ago, really there has been only minimal improvement.

We have worked on the pencil grip and he now has what appears a good grip.

I do not want to put him through more hours of careful practise if it is the wrong type.

Has anyone seen big improvements with an OT? Are they available under the NHS or do you have to go private?

The school agree that it is an issue, are constantly putting comments on his work, but have not really made any suggestions. It is now all affecting his self esteem.

As a SENCO I often refer children to the OT for handwriting issues.

Thank you mrz. Do you tend to see big improvements? Obviously this is a how long is a piece of string type of question!

Do they tend to be available under the NHS, under reasonable time-frames or is the reality that I would need to go private?

Our pupils tend to receive 10 sessions with the OT and a programme to follow at home and at school. We have been fortunate that we could make direct referrals to a private paediatric OT service because NHS referrals can take a very long time and it does make a difference.

My ds1 is seeing an OT for handwriting issues. We are going privately. It is early days, but he is making excellent progress. The OT identified a number of physical issues, and has designed an exercise programme to address them. We are also doing 20 minutes of handwriting practice a day in place of normal homework (with the agreement of ds1's teacher). Ds1 is 8 and in year 4.

Speed Up by Lois Addy is a well respected programme of exercises to address and remediate difficulties related to gross and fine motor skills - and to handwriting. It certainly won't hurt to buy and follow the exercises in the programme ( set out clearly ) while you wait for an NHS referral.

Also useful : www.nha-handwriting.org.uk/handwriting/help-for-parents

Thank you - some good tips there - I will look out the speed up book and view the website.

Yes, we did a crash course over half term, purely focused on handwriting, for an hour a day with a local private OT practise. It has made an enormous difference to DS2's handwriting, all the letters are now formed correctly. We practise semi regularly, 3-4 times a week, but it was the course that 'flipped the switch'.

Ds1 also went, he has other issues and has OT from the NHS as well. They have supposedly been working on handwriting for the last two years but this one week did more for him than they have ever done.

IME it is better, if at all possible, to do it privately to start off with, then you can follow their, tailored, advice and practise at home.

I think that your son is too old for a lot of the interventions like "Write from the Start". There is a window of opportunity that closes around the age of seven or eight for improving visual perception. That is problably why your son has had no sucess with "Write from the Start".

My son saw an OT for handwriting and other fine motor control issues at the age of five and it really helped him. In our area the NHS does not offer help for over eights unless there is a major disablity.

If you have the money then a private OT will not harm him. I think a child can improve their writing/ fine motor skills but they have to be VERY SELF MOVIATED. I think a lot of parents underestimate the sheer level of work required to see a small improvement.

It might be more productive to teach your son touch typing.

Thank you really tired - this was my fear, that the window of opportunity had closed.

I am not convinced it is a visual perception problem though. He seemed to find the obvious visual perception areas of the book fairly easy, but maybe they were just the very easy examples.

How would I know if it was a visual perception problem? I wish I had done something earlier now, but I kept being told that it would improve and the letters and joins are basically formed correctly, so it is all very legible, just scruffy and therefore hard on the eye.

Hairy Maclary can I ask how old your DC is and whereabouts you are based? PM me if you would rather keep these details confidential.

I did OT with our DD last year so she was 9.5. Her handwriting was absolutely appalling and she was also quite slow. I was waiting for the problem to fix itself, talked to her about being more neat and careful, etc.
No result.

We did do Write from the Start and Handwriting Rescue but no use.

Finally, after realizing that her work will simply be unreadable and in preparation for 11+ English exams, I took her and it made a HUGE difference. Like a previous poster, it was a SWITCH. She started writing very legibly and fluently within 2 weeks of daily exercises.

And if I didn't take her to OT, I wouldn't have been able to help her at all - I simply didn't have the expertise. Doing Write from the Start or any such program is not going to help if the right muscles are not working/weak etc and only a professional will be able to judge that.

We actually only went 9-10 times and she taught us the exercises which we needed to do daily for muscle strength, gave us handwriting exercises, did check ups to track progress.

She actually said that she has a lot of teenagers who come to her because their hands hurt when they start writing a lot in KS3/GCSE years.

BUT it is a commitment - you must keep doing exercises daily (30-35 min for us it was) for 2-3 terms. We stopped after 2 terms because we didn't have the time and DD's handwriting regressed, but still miles better that it was. We are starting again.

BTW, once we get 11+ exams out of the way, we'll start on the touch typing courses and practice, it was advice from OT. But she was also adamant that was NOT a substitute for addressing handwriting issues - you have to have very serious issues (writing speed significantly below average) to be able to use laptops in exams so while they and touch typing are useful, you'll still need reasonable handwriting for exams.

No no no! Children can still improve after the age of 7 - dramatically improve. I have a friend who is a paediatric OT and works as a handwriting tutor. She has had some great results. It does however need considerable perseverance and practice as irisha describes.

Irisha - thanks that is just what I needed to hear! Does she have low muscle tone generally? I am not aware that DS does, but having said that, he has difficulty drawing straight lines, so am beginning to think it is more fine motor than visual perception.

Having looked at what he did in 'write from the start' it was the fine motor exercises that looked the worst.

Yep, thanks educatingarti - not about to give up yet. His writing is not fast, but then it is not snails pace either. Not sure he would qualify for extra time in exams, so I also take the view that we progress the handwriting as much as we can.

I am a touch typist myself, so very pro touch typing and will ensure that he improves his skills at this too. He has already had some instruction at school, I think, as part of ICT lessons.

She doesn't really have low muscle tone in general, and didn't have issues with fine motor skills -learned to tie laces straight away and the age of 5.5 or so, loved beading, cutting, sewing, etc.
But there were some weird things - like she didn't like her hand being held when she was little or it had to be held in a particular way, can't do straight lines either, does lines from bottom to top rather than the "normal" way of from top to bottom, or from right to left rather than the other way around, etc.
On the surface, her pencil grip was correct, but apparently she didn't flex her index and thumb properly when she was writing so we worked on those specific muscles but everybody's issues are different and that's why I think OT is the best route - a lot of those things are quite subtle to be visible to the naked eye.
There were also issues with her posture and wrist flexing which I wouldn't have noticed.
The good thing is that it doesn't have to be expensive - our OT was very adamant that she will teach us what to do with DD because that's the only way to make a LT difference, it's often and little that's need. The weekly/bi-weekly sessions would be there to provide direction, re-adjust exercise program. She explained all the tricky parts of the exercises/showed how to do them correctly/I filmed some of them on i-pad and off we went. I think we had something like 4 sessions in first 2 weeks to get the hang of the exercises, then progress check after 3 weeks, then 1 a month or even 1 every two month.
It's critical to do these together with DC to make sure they do them properly (i.e. right muscles working) - so it's your commitment as well as DC's.

BTW, the school was totally useless as well - our OT actually went in to have a chat re support to be put in place, ie. reminding her to keep the right posture, asking them to give her a separate desk in humanities where lots of writing is needed so she can have both elbows firmly on the table rather than hanging off, etc.
DD is also doing very well academically but her presentation (not just handwriting) was sub-par. Funnily enough, as handwriting improved, general presentation improved as well, i.e spacing out, neat numbering, keeping off the margins, etc.

After much asking on my part the school finally referred DS1 in Yr 4. He had an assessment with OT last summer.

He has core balance issues and was wrapping his feet around the chair legs for stability. He also has problems with riding a bike.

He now has a sloping cushion to sit on and a writing slope for use in school. He says that this has helped him a lot. His writing is now legible at least!

We are about to start a handwriting skills programme after the Christmas holidays.

Definitely not too old for interventions but I would suggest Speed Up rather than Write from the Start

Irisha and Hairy, please could I have the details of the OT and handwriting courses. Sounds hopeful!

Great to hear all of these positive stories! As I said before, my DS has been going to an OT, and also doing daily handwriting practice with me for a few weeks now (based on the Speed Up programme). Today, his teacher showed me a 3 page story he had written. At the beginning of term, he would not have written more than three lines. I think she was as amazed as I am .

He is sitting better and writing faster and more neatly. But the best thing is that his default response to being asked to write something is no longer to burst into tears (he's 8). He just gets on with it, as you'd expect a year 4 child to do.

We used Amanda McLeod (not OT, but handwriting tutor, brilliant, but does not do statutory assessments for exam extra time, etc) in Pimlico, London www.amandamcleod.org/ and Lynda Shaw (OT, also brilliant) - she used to be in New Malden but is now in Merton I believe. She had a partner in her practice in New Malden who we were less impressed with but she herself is absolutely top notch.

In London, these things are between £60 to £100 per session (more for an initial assessment because it take longer).

Thank you, Irisha

Children can improve after the age of seven, but it is a lot harder and requires more work than if hand writing problems are tackled earlier. It is hard to correct ingrained bad habits.

These threads make me angry because teachers have let down older children. I feel that a child who arrives at school at the age of four with no pen control should not be allowed to flounder. Ten minutes a day with Write from the Start at the age of four or five for six weeks produces dramatic results and the child doesn't get left behind. Just leaving a child to play at the age of four when their fine motor skills is dire is cruel.