Dysgraphia

[ServeTheServants]

Hi there, I was just wondering if any other parents can share their experiences of having a child with dysgraphia please? My daughter in year 2 has just been diagnosed with it, and is also left handed. The reason I sought to engage with a SEN practitioner was owing to how difficult she found writing during the last bout of home schooling...in particular, spelling and the sheer length of time it takes her to write (even copy) a sentence. Despite having a reading age much higher than her own, her spelling just does not match up. It is like she has never seen most words in the English language given how badly things are misspelled. I feel so worried for her future given that the traditional school system is so heavily focused on masses of writing.

We are going to engage her (very supportive) school in how to make things easier for her, but if anyone has any tips / suggestions they would he very gratefully received. So as not to drip feed, she scored average or above average on all other cognitive tests and has been fully verbal since 18 months, so all other areas are fine.

My DD has it. Didn't get diagnosed until she was 11. She's starting touch typing shortly at school...apparently that's much easier.

Thank you. Yes, I was planning on starting touch typing with my daughter too. Will her school allow her use of a laptop when there?

If you don’t mind sharing, how has your daughter found school thus far? Has it been frustrating for her?

Well my DD's school is allowing it but we're in Oz and it's a private school. I believe a UK state will allow though.

She found it very tricky...she not only has dysgraphia but also dyscalculia and ADD.

These have made her learning difficult BUT ...she is extremely popular in her peer group, very emotionally intelligent and above average in her reading and in her language skills (spoken).

She'll be fine in my opinion. I suspect I also have dyscalculia and dysgraphia. I did badly at school but ended up more than fine thanks to attending a very good drama school. I'm a professional writer now...I've been earning a living writing copy and blogs for a variety of businesses for over 10 years. My fiction and poetry have also been published in the UK, Canada and Australia and my radio comedy has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 multiple times.

When I was at school, my essays would be returned to me with "Illegible" written on them in red.

Touch typing and spell check are my crutches. You may find that your daughter is a very good storyteller...does that ring true? Big imagination?

Hi, my daughter was also diagnosed with dysgraphia in 2019 age 15 after many years struggling to write a full page of writing, despite her age. She is also of average cognitive ability, her reading score has always been better than her age. I think there are different ways in which dysgraphia can present itself and I was surprised at the diagnosis because my daughter's spelling and high level vocabulary is good for her age. However, since Year 6 when she started to read books with no pictures and smaller print she has refused to read on her own for pleasure and says the print is too small, despite having an eye test at that time which concluded she had no impairment. She was also diagnosed with Dyslexia at the same time and I believe these conditions often co-exist. Unfortunately, she's never had any help which would allow her to overcome these difficulties. An English teacher has tried overlays and picking a colour which makes the writing clearer, but this didn't seem to make enough difference. I think unless you get a special educational needs trained teacher, it's difficult, as mainstream teachers aren't trained in what to look out for and don't have the Send experience. Help would be more likely in a special school. One thought is whether your child could also have some Hypermobility in wrists and fingers/thumbs, as this affects the ability to grip the pen, they tire easily from writing. This could be checked by a physiotherapist.