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.

Breaking things down

As the demands of the school curriculum increase with age, so does the homework. For children with written output problems this is enormously stressful. It is enormously stressful for parents also. Trying to keep the child focused and in the chair is the first challenge.

I am continually working on finding strategies to make homework less onerous. One thing is to break everything down into clear stages. Thus:

Type the first question on the computer screen. Allow the child to answer that single question.

Then move to the next one.

Don't try to copy out worksheets onto the screen and have the child fill them up. The sight of words overwhelms these children. Think of it like covering information with an A4 sheet in the book.

Another thing which exasperates these children is the concept of the length of time homework will take because of writing impediments. Therefore explain they need only consider the question they are on.

Continually find ways to break down large tasks. The work or task must feel manageable of the child's interest will fail and they will absolutely downtool.

Another challenge is their tendency to do the reverse and zoom through everything, half doing it, just to be finished. They produce inferior work that does not reflect their capabilities.

Negotiate with the teacher around the work. See if you can get agreement on quality over volume.

When they really begin to openly despair. Scribe for them. Or offer to scribe some questions (scribe can also be typing).

The critical thing is to ensure your child has understood the concept especially if it's maths. They do not necessarily need to do 20 questions to prove they've understood it.

With social science seek audio and audio visual materials to enhance learning such as documentaries or recorded books or photography.

I am going to try to find some mind map templates to upload here.

I heartily recommend inspiration software for brainstorming. It's very child friendly. There are also some new open source options.

Progress on writing materials: Indispensable Staedtler products

My earlier post about the Dixon pencil has now been well and truly usurped by discovering the wonderful and frankly indispensable range of products that Staedtler offer. If your child has writing struggles they will find these pencils, pens, markers are designed to aide the fatigue factor.

My child initially tested a bunch of different writing materials in a specific writing class at school. The Staedtler triplus fineliner was the pen that he found most assisted him and the teacher encouraged me to seek the pens for him. We bought a packet of them from a local art shop for about 12-14 dollars and subsequently discovered Staedtler offer a bunch of other products that have generally made writing and colouring and drawing less onerous and plenty more joyful.

Can't recommend them enough. The quality of the products is represented in the slightly higher cost, but they are actually are good value overall because they are durable and well made. The most significant impact is the ink seems to come out faster and easier, thus relieving the need for heavy pressing and manipulation of the pens.

The ergosoft range of jumbo pencils have a lovely, rich tone to them. They are triangular in shape, easier to grasp and are packaged in a neat blue plastic box, which turns into a pen stand and means they do not end up rolling away under the couch never to be retrieved again.

They also offer triangular jumbo wooden pencils which have a softer colouring tone, and again nice ergonomic feel to them.

The MARS ERGOSOFT (again a jumbo triangular pencil) graphite pencil will help children with writing tasks. It has a soft, rubbery casing. If your child does not care for the rubber covered one there's a sister pencil which is identical in triangular shape, but has the ordinary casing on it.

I will be uploading links and pictures of these products when I find time. Please post comments if your child finds them useful. Also, if you're having trouble locating these pens and pencils drop me an email and I will try to point you in the right direction of suppliers etc.

To begin with you can read further about these pencils etc on their international website http://www.staedtler.com/home_gb.Staedtler?ActiveID=2131

The Canadian website is here

I hope your child enjoys as much joy as we have with these pens and pencils. The big progress has been that as soon as the child sees an improvement in representing their ideas on the page, some of the frustration can abate and hopefully a sense of achievement takes over.

Features of Written Output Disorder

At last here are a list of some of the features or indicators of Written Output Disorder. A big thank you to Sarah Howard, the assessment manager, of The Eaton Learning Centre, who graciously provided this helpful information. I know this information will be valuable to parents worried about their children and considering educational testing. I will create a permanent link to it in the links section, so it will be easily available.

1)Resistance to writing tasks that goes above and beyond the “norm” for that child – this can include a refusal to show math work.


2)Anxiety around writing tasks or opposition

3)Poorly formed printing, difficulty learning to write cursively

4)Forgetting to use capitals and punctuation correctly despite knowing the “rules”

5)Writing all the way up to the edge of a page – seeming not to understand the physical limitations of the page space

6)Very large letters or very small letters or what looks like trying to drive the pencil right through the page – all symptoms of “finger agnosia” where the student cannot get enough feedback from their fingers about the pencil and so they grip tighter and tighter, losing control

7)Aversion towards artwork – not all students are like this – or a hatred of colouring tasks

8)Notable difference between a child’s verbal skills/oral expression and their written work – an example of this would be a student who could tell you everything you wanted to know about the atom but when asked to make a poster outlining the parts of an atom, might write the following: Neutron = part of an atom, Proton = part of an atom, Electron = part of an atom.

In testing, we look primarily at visual processing speed, visual motor integration, and fine motor coordination but working memory and expressive language difficulties as well as problems with attention can also wreck havoc on a child’s ability to write.

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.

Meet the Alphasmart NEO

Say bonjour to the NEO. We welcomed it to our kitchen table this week and so far it's proving compatible with my child's needs.

The most immediate appealing aspects of the NEO are it's very light in weight compared to a laptop, (like carrying a light book) and the keyboard is far more "child friendly". The cost is far more affordable than a regular laptop. For the complete rundown on the cost, dimensions etc go to http://www.alphasmart.com/products/neo.html

I will be documenting our experience with the NEO. So far I've noticed it's very straightforward to use and I like how clean the font is when its printed. It's simple to hook up to the printer, just plug it in. At least that's how it worked here.

I think this keyboard could prove a useful and important aide to any child with output issues. Another advantage is that there is nothing else to distract the child such as internet access or a plethora of colours and logos. The screen displays a paragraph of text at a time and I think this lack of "distraction" means it could be useful for helping children stay on the task. The NEO could remain on the desk and the child can completely interact with peers and the classroom. A laptop screen creates more of a barrier potentially. This feels no different than having a big exercise book on the desk.

Phobia

It was suggested to me that written output disorder sometimes might be a focal example of such traditional anxiety disorder categories as specific phobia and that there have been carefully designed programs of ERP (exposure response prevention therapy) have been shown in controlled trials to help greatly.

I have searched for references to read more about this, but I have found nothing yet that specifically links the two. I did find information about graphaphobia (sp? name?) but by all accounts that seems to be some sort of fear of writing in public. (I suppose writing in a school setting could qualify as such an example?) If anyone comes across or knows where to further research this please email suggestions to writtenoutputdisorder@gmail.com Possibly I am not looking in the right places.

I post this suggestion here because it may have relevance to people reading this blog and may be something they wish to investigate further. For my own circumstances I can see no evidence that it has much resonance for my child, for whom I've seen the physical act of writing causes difficulties, but I see a desire to write, that is thwarted somewhat by the physical slowness, which frustrates him. I have seen marked improvements with modifications to the expectations and I have also seen that the introduction of the keyboarding/typing facilitates a much more natural and rapid output.

I think anxiety is also a natural by product of being in a classroom setting where you sense a disparity between yourself and other children. I think there's a lot to excavate in this question of anxiety for these children.

Anxiety and working memory: reference material

This is a link to a long extract from this publication:

http://www.members.tripod.com/trainland/behrman.pdf

Behrman: Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics, Sixteenth Edition, Copyright © 2000 W. B.
Saunders Company
Chapter 22 - Anxiety Disorders

Basically around p32-35 (chapter written by Melvin D Levine) I found some references to working memory problems, which can often impede written output.


Will keep hunting for more specific documentation on this topic. Email any leads or links to writtenoutputdisorder@gmail.com please.

Survival: Learning to ignore unhelpful remarks

This is a tricky one.
In your quest to understand why your child isn't quite the same fit in the classroom, as the majority of the other children seem, you may encounter well-intentioned parents lingering around the playground, who in an effort to be helpful and insightful will suggest ridiculous things. Some of the most onerous comments might come from parent volunteers in the classroom, (not to be confused with education assistants or student educators) who will have observed your child and then try to offer an embedded report and analysis. It's important early on to figure out who your troops are and gravitate towards those people in the event of the many, extended anxious moments you will inevitably endure in searching for answers and tangible solutions. (Even when you begin to get answers you can be assured your anxiety will not necessarily diminish!) Usually the troops tend to be people who have some experience of struggle with their own children. I use the word struggle carefully and it's not to be interpreted as negative because it's not. Struggle, if anything, is enlightening (case in point: no artistic process is undertaken nor completed successfully without some element of struggle.)

The kinds of helpfully intended, unhelpful suggestions you may hear are:

• people palming off your concerns as having no legitimacy. "Don't worry.. it'll get better kind of talk." I would counter that by saying: if you are worried, investigate all the resources you can and advocate for your child swiftly. In my limited experience I think a parent's instinct can be very accurate about their child, especially since you spend so much more time with them. You have the right to information. There's plenty information and reading material available for you to research. There are organisations you can phone for advice. There are services you can investigate to assess your child, it will likely cost you cash, but it's a small price ultimately. Do not be put off investigating if you are living in abject poverty. Education programs in Universities often do assessments for low income families. There will be a wait list. Get your child on it.

• some folks may suggest "you just need to practise... I have x and x tutor and my child goes to x tutoring service three nights a week." Again from what I understand about written output disorder, endless practice whilst not out rightly detrimental to the child will not necessarily produce marked results either. There is also the clear issue that writing is painful and difficult for these children. You'll notice your child may even lie down on the floor and protest. One professional who I talked to likened the experience of insisting a child with written output disorder write continuously to torture for them. You may already have seen this with your child: you ask him or her to copy something out of a book say and it's clearly a very taxing and unpleasant process for them.

• You can expect to feel isolated and maybe somewhat alienated from other parents in the school playground. Remember though that struggle comes in all shapes and sizes and whilst you may not find anyone in the school population with the identical profile to your child per se, there are going to be other parents dealing with other challenges. They will understand your gripping anxiety. You seek them out gradually. You walk away from conversations that veer into unhelpful territory because you need all your mental energy to vote for your child, not argue the toss with someone who has no concept of what you are dealing with.
• It's can feel similar with teachers. If your child is in a classroom with an understanding, informed and supportive teacher it's a great boon because the teacher will also be strongly advocating for your child's needs within the school and be accessing resources and help on their behalf. If, however, they are not you'll have to seek your answers elsewhere in the school or outside the school completely. A useful thing that I intend to create and add to this blog will be a list of open ended questions that will aide communications with the teacher and help the situation. There's nothing more distressing once you get some answers than to look back at parent teacher meetings and realize there were significant red flags flapping in the wind during them.

• You may hear comments from parents that upset you. Perhaps someone infers that your child shouldn't be in this particular school for whatever uninformed reason. Perhaps they suggest you did or didn't do something for your child -- this may be phrased "well I began teaching my Johnny or Mary to write when he was three.. " Or they may comment or question the kinds of material your child is attracted to, this is common with gifted children. The words " I have to go now" should be top of your lexicon, followed by rapid footsteps towards the gate. Eventually you'll get very adept at noting when these kinds of conversations are in the air.

Having said all that: sometimes a conversation that has a seemingly unhelpful tone in parts can end up being enlightening. People may disclose ah ha.. my sister's child has that issue and you can talk to her about it. It really does depend on whether you can maintain your composure long enough to get to the useful part.