Dysgraphia
People with
Dysgraphia,
Difficulty with Handwriting, and
whose work is messy.
May have
Difficulty with Visual Motor Integration,
Difficulty with Fine Motor Performance,
Poor Psycho-Motor Speed,
Fine Motor Fluency, and/or
Difficulty with Eye-Hand Coordination.
What is Dysgraphia
This student has difficulty with handwriting and may have had trouble learning to use scissors, a fork and knife, etc. His/her work is often described as messy, and the student is talked about as having visual motor integration or fine motor performance problems. Poor eye-hand coordination is another label frequently used. This relates to the coordinated movements of eye and hand in tasks such as writing. Writing requires smooth, coordinated use of the small muscles. The word dysgraphia is sometimes used when difficulty exists in these areas. Dysgraphic students who write slowly are very likely to be described as having poor psycho-motor speed. They do poorly on tests that require copying at a specific rate.
The students with these problems are described by teachers as writing poorly, as being late with fine motor development and as having a strange way to grasp pencils. They may have been slow or inefficient in developing skills with blocks, using crayons or dressing themselves.
Handwriting is a very challenging task that requires visual receptive and visual memory skill, fine motor skill and the capacity to integrate visual and motoric actions. It also requires positional competence to get the letters where they belong. If the student's written work is not as good as the work of peers, be sure to check the sections that explore visual reception, visual memory and position-in-space (Reversals).
Students with difficulty with fine motor activities may be poor with gross motor tasks, but this is not always the case. Poor performance in one area does not mean poor performance in the other area.
Some students with dysgraphia can produce acceptable handwriting, but they do so as if their handwriting were an art project, and it takes a very long time. It is not a skill that is useful to impart other knowledge to someone else.
Some very bright and creative students abandon their good ideas in situations where the ideas must be written out. They shorten their ideas and simplify their words, because the original thoughts are overwhelming (too time consuming and energy consuming).
The student with diagnosed handwriting problems would benefit from immediate work with a computer. The young student can be captured with learning games that will lay the foundation for using a portable computer to take notes in high school and college. Computer competence of this degree must be planned for, and that plan must be made early. Plan on some one-to-one work with the computer in the beginning. Then be sure this student takes every computer course you can find.
The student should begin keyboarding early. A simple word processor can be learned in second grade, particularly if one-to-one tutoring is available.
Be sure this student has a computer at home that is the same make as those at school. Second hand computers are cheaper; it will take a bit of effort to locate one.
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