My DS is in Yr 9 and almost 14. He is reasonably bright and is secure or above in all his subjects. He has always had difficulty with his physical writing skills (he was the last to get a 'pen license') and we'd hoped this would improve. However, he continues not to use capital letters and regularly does not dot his 'i's or cross his 't's. Random capital letters sometimes appear in the middle of words eg. P's and letters jump up in the air. His writing is also VERY messy. His spelling is not bad and he is an able reader. He is a strong verbal communicator but often has difficulty producing as good answers in written work. A couple of years ago I began to suspect he might suffer from dysgraphia and did some research. I spoken with the school who basically said that because he does reasonably well academically he did not need to be assessed. My main concern is that he will not reach his full potential at GCSE and will lose marks across his subjects for grammar and punctuation. This may or may not affect the final grades he would achieve. I know I can have him assessed privately but this seems to cost around £800 and I don't know what the point of having a diagnosis would be. We did consider asking if he could use a laptop as this seems to help the flow of words. I was told there was no guarantee he would be allowed to use a laptop for GCSE and that the capital letter function would be disabled. Is there anything I should be considering to help support him? We've tried handwriting lessons etc but this hasn't helped. Would a diagnosis mean he could get extra time to allow him to check through his work?