Summer reflections

Summer is here and it's a great time for parents to have some space to think about the school year that just passed and the one that's ahead. Unfortunately it's also the time when all the school work comes home and she find yourself incidentally leaving through reams of it and taken out of context it can sometimes create alarm.

Summer is a good time to try to tackle things at a gentle pace therefore:

* schedule some daily typing practice.
* if necessary try to find games that insist on words being entered as commands.
* obtain a never ending stream of books that interest your child, so they lounge about reading rather than over doing it on the Wii.
* Try to revise areas of maths from last year and look at next years curriculum to prep for what will be coming.
* Have fun and play chase!
*Talk to other parents who have children with written output problems and get some inspiration.

Major discovery: Twist n write pencil

This is the twist n write pencil that an OT gave my child to help avoid what she termed the "death grip" when he's writing. It's a real boon and will help your child. They are widely available in the US at stationary shops it appears, in Canada I am less clear how they are obtained, but will post any links I find. Ditto UK.


Please post your experiences using it in the comments section and other shops you've found to buy it.

PBS Misunderstood Minds page

Here's a good writing difficulties page from PBS Misunderstood Minds site:
Mel Levine describes what can inhibit writing development and offers some exercises where you can experience assignments from the pov of child with a grapho motor problem etc.

Well worth a read. He's a great authority on different learning styles.

Radio Broadcast: Dysgraphia: More Than Just Bad Handwriting

Many people have poor handwriting, but dysgraphia is more serious. Dsygraphia is a neurological disorder that generally appears when children are first learning to write. Writing by hand can be physically painful for people who have it. There are different kinds of dysgraphia. And it can appear with other learning disabilities, especially involving language.

Listen again to the program here

Boy is empowered by his weakness

Michael Guggenheim's dysgraphia, a learning disorder that impairs his writing, spurred him to open a nonprofit that teaches homeless students how to use computers.

He is 12, a sixth-grader at Los Encinos School in Encino. He can't drive, vote or write much with a pencil, but he started a nonprofit when he was 11 and teaches computer skills to elementary students once a week.

He doesn't regard his dysgraphia, a learning disorder that severely impairs writing, as a disability. Instead, he has turned it into a driving force.

Read LA Times story here.

Dygraphia strategies link

Came across interesting dysgraphia link with a comprehensive list of symptoms and strategies. If you're worried about your child, or yourself for that matter it might be useful to take a look at the list. If you've already received a dysgraphia diagnosis the strategies could be of interest. There are 41 writing strategies listed. And here, handily, are the spelling ones:
Strategies For Spelling Difficulties:

1. Encourage consistent use of spell checker to decrease the overall demands of the writing task and encourage students to wait until the end to worry about spelling.
2. Encourage use of an electronic resource such as the spell check component in a Franklin Language Master® to further decrease the demands.
3. Have the student look at each word, then close their eyes and visualize how it looks, letter by letter.
4. Have the student spell each word out loud while looking at it, then look away and spell it out loud again several times before writing it down.
5. Have the students break the spelling list down into manageable sections of only 3 to 5 words. Then take a break after mastering each section.
6. Have a scrabble board and computer accessible for affected students

Bravo to whomever gave such comprehensive thought to this topic!

Comprehensive dysgraphia overview

Again, excellent overview at this W Virginia School of Medicine college website including some very detailed info on Occupational Therapy -- a practical and essential consideration if you have the cash to pay for it. (Unless you're fortunate enough to live in a place where it's funded! UK perhaps?)

If you've, or your child have experience with OT please post a comment, so others can learn more. Thank you to anyone who has emailed to say how useful you're finding this blog. It's wonderful to know that parents are finding it informative and helpful. Will be updating more regularly so please check back for latest progress on useful strategies I've unearthed.

Dysgraphia/written output struggles -- we want to hear from you

There's a very interesting comment been posted at an earlier posting http://writtenoutputdisorder.blogspot.com/2007/01/dysgraphia-vs-written-output-disorder.html on this blog that I encourage you all to read.

Brent, just about to graduate with his master degree, (bravo!) details his background being gifted with dysgraphia.

It's very insightful to hear these stories. There's so few resources on written output struggles and first hand accounts are fascinating and help us gain a better understanding.

At the library yesterday I was looking at Samuel Beckett's theatrical notebooks. They were written in a squared notebook. I looked at three of them, curious to see how long he could maintain such upright, clear writing. In two of them it slanted to the right. While I was looking at them, (they are actually in German) I remembered the terrible cramps in my hands writing essays and exams. It made me wonder if unbeknownst to me at the time I had had my own struggles with physical writing. Obviously they did not impede me to the extent that I see my own child challenged by them, but I am far more fluid on a keyboard.

I often noticed that doctors handwriting can be completely illegible for example. It would be very interesting to hear from people who have been challenged by written output and have had to make choices based on those challenges because I am thinking the implications forty or fifty years ago of such a challenge would have been vastly different from today where accommodations can be made with technology.

A lawyer recently told me he was most certainly penalised for his poor handwriting all the way through university.

If you know anyone with such stories please encourage them email to writtenoutputdisorder.blogspot.com if they do not wish to comment on the actual blog. I can post them anon. as blog postings if they prefer. I'm very happy for people to consider this compiling of information rather than "sharing" of stories, which understandably not everyone feels comfortable with. Most people reading this blog are looking for strategies, so it's very valuable to hear the strategies people used to cope and what the implications of these challenges have been for them if they care to disclose. If not, that's fine. In short just tell us what got you through.

Someone recently suggested to me that one way to deal with ADD is to accept you might need to have five different careers in your lifetime. I thought that was quite a genius of a concept.

Dysgraphia vs Written Output Disorder

I am trying to ascertain what the difference is between dysgraphia and written output disorder.

If you have any insights or thoughts please leave a comment.

Thanks.

The Mislabeled Child

Here is a link to an interview with Drs' Brock and Fernette Eide the authors of an interesting looking book called The Mislabeled Child.

http://www.ednews.org/articles/6468/1/An-Interview-with-Brock-and-Fernette-Eide--The-Mislabeled-Child/Page1.html

They have a website and blog which has specific reference material to dysgraphia in their library section which some readers may find helpful.

http://mislabeledchild.com/

The blog has articles posted daily addressing all manner of pertinent topics relating to learning differences with a strong neurological emphasis.

Instead of hysterical activity like putting weapons in space, governments should consider investing serious dollars in studying the brain because as I heard Henry Marsh a pioneering neurosurgeon remark recently in a radio three essay as part of the freethinking festival "there's much we still don't know." (that's not a verbatim quote, but it was the gist of his sentiment).