Folllwing numerous behavioural & educational problems at his previous school we took ds to an ed psych. He ran a battery of tests which indicated a likelihood of an autistic spectrum disorder but most importantly in terms of school ds has a processing speed on a very low centile & dysfluent handwriting on the DASH test. In school he'd been writing hardly anything. Th Ed psych reccimended he be allowed to use a laptop for written subjects & exams & he gets extra time because of his processing speed. It was like the physical process of handwriting took up so much physical & mental effort that ds couldn't think about the content of what he was writing.
This had a huge influence on his learning & he went from barely writing his name on the page to scoring well in subjects like English. His creative writing improved massively (it had always been a huge issue). We were told that this had to become his normal way of working for exams.
He's had to move schools but one thing we are concerned about is that so far he hasn't been given a laptop (at his old school all the kids took in their own iPads but at this school you aren't allowed to take in devices). He has a TA for some lessons & it appears that she is offering to write for him. Ds declined, he doesnt like that way of working so has been struggling to write (it physically hurts him).
Does anyone know what the pros & cons are of both methods. I get the impression his new school have more children who get a scribe in exams. He is in the top set for everything (previous school was selective, this one isn't but he couldn't cope with the pressure) so I'm concerned that because he is high ability anyway it won't be seen as a problem. His attention span is dreadful.
He's being observed next week by Autism Outreach & I am due to go in for a meeting the week after so I want to gather my facts.