Poor writing age 6 with asd

[blueandwhitesquares]

Hey hoping for some success stories! My little boy is autistic, just turned 6 and in year 1 in England mainstream school with an EHCP and good small group support work

He's about a year or 2 behind overall including speech but school tell me with reading phonics and spelling that although slow he's doing well. Writing on the other hand is another issue. He doesn't seem to like holding a pencil. We've tried so many other activities at home to help him out with fine motor work so I don't need suggestions as I've tried till blue in the face. He's not interested 9 times out of 10

Cos I know he works better with a teacher I've signed him up to private tuition once a week but it's early days. I'm hoping there he can do his colouring/hold a pencil as he's likely to do it for teachers but not for me

I just wondered does anyone have any success stories of how it all
Worked out in the end? Cos I do worry

I don't need ideas to try as have tried. Looking for positive success stories as right now he's in year 1 and can write his name and some numbers but that's it

[openupmyeagereyes]

How are his gross motor skills? Good fine motor skills develop from good GMS so working on core, shoulder and arm strength should help alongside the other things you are doing.

[blueandwhitesquares]

Gross motor very good

Do u have a success story to share?

[blueandwhitesquares]

Anyone else?

[Headfirstintothewild]

How are DS’s fine motor skills with other tasks/activities? Has he had an OT assessment and is there any ongoing OT support? You don’t need to pay for a tutor, any support DS requires should be in the EHCP. When is the next AR?

[blueandwhitesquares]

He doesn't get OT yet but it has been recommended so I am pushing for it now

His EHCP review is in May

[blueandwhitesquares]

Also the point of this thread was more for success stories if anyone has any?

[Headfirstintothewild]

It OT is required it should be in F. Following the AR, if the LA doesn’t amend to include all the provision reasonably required, including OT and any tuition, you should appeal because at the moment it is inadequate.

[blueandwhitesquares]

@Headfirstintothewild ok enough now as I know what I'm doing. Pls go and let the success stories come in. I don't welcome ur advice

[Headfirstintothewild]

If you don’t want people replying you shouldn’t post on an open forum because you don’t get to dictate who replies. Your opening post and subsequent post indicated you didn’t know the SEP that can be in F, hence my post.

[Bobobab]

If you are so confident in what you are doing then you surely you are also confident it will be successful. Wish I could feel so happy I was doing everything I could, so many posts on here have been so helpful past and present people are only trying to help.

My ds has very similar challenges... he's 6 and I would also love to hear good outcomes but also how people got that success so I can try those things. At the moment we have an OT programme of gross and fine motor activities we complete daily and we do Write from the Start... not seen much progress yet but its been about 4 months.

[OneInEight]

This may still be too advanced but the teacher ds2 made the most progress with was the one who got the children to read out their writing back to her. She did not care if it was neat just legible. His writing is still not neat but you can read it and, of course as an adult most of the time he is using a computer anyway to do any writing work.

Will your son draw at all. ds2 was pretty bad at drawing too when he was little but he would if the topic interested him. Think roads, drainpipes and electrical wires rather than cute teddy bears. Often you couldn't tell what it was unless you were listening to the running commentary as he drew. Colouring in was just not on his radar as an interesting thing to do & certainly not neatly. Basically what I am trying to say is find activities that interest him but as an aside help him develop fine motor skills.

[beautifulbrothers]

I'm not sure I can claim this is a success story, but my DS was always a cautious child and was developmentally behind his peers at nursery with gross motor skills. I had every art material under the sun to support his fine motor skills (hexagonal jumbo pencils, tri-grip crayons, ergonomic paintbrushes, etc.) and DS was not interested at all. He didn't mark make, and later would never choose to colour in or draw. His reading was advanced for his age, so we thought that there was an aspect of frustration for him. He used to become very distressed when he did occasionally try something and it wasn't perfect.

In the past year, we have slowly started to see progress: simple drawings (often of mazes or wiring as mentioned by a PP) and he is writing at school. He sometimes would try to write numbers (often digital form with straight lines) and he copied a couple of poems from his favourite book.

I think having drawing/colouring time alongside peers at school has made the biggest difference. It took a couple of years and we'd often come home with blank colouring sheets or sheets with numbers written on the back, but now we're seeing pictures and writing in his books. He got there in his own time, and is still making progress, but I would say it was all because he suddenly seemed to be interested in doing it, rather than because he was being taught to do it.

I hope that helps.

Edited to say that he was 6 in November.

[blueandwhitesquares]

@beautifulbrothers that all does sound very positive but he's the same age as my son so it's great he's getting there too but I was more thinking of success stories where kids now much older etc