My son, age 12 does not space his words well. He makes spaces in the word it self. He does not capitalize nor punctuate. Makes reversal on some letters and numbers.
Does not write or read cursive. The so called “help” he did receive was of no use.
I would like to understand if your children have these same syptoms or worse.
Thank You
Re: How severe is your childs dysgraphia?
That sounds like mild to moderate dysgraphia to me. Severe dysgraphics cannot write at all.
There is an active email list at http://groups.yahoo.com called Dysgraphia you may want to join. There are many parents there willing to share information.
Callirobics can help with muscle development. (http://www.callirobics.com). However, it probably wouldn’t help with spacing, and would not address capitalization/punctuation/spelling problems.
Occupational therapy is usually used to help with handwriting (including learning cursive). You may want to check into that. Many OTs use the program “Handwriting Without Tears” for cursive. If you can’t get help from an OT, you can purchase this program yourself and teach your son cursive at home. The materials are inexpensive and the program is very easy to use. (Also, the author is good about answering any questions you may have.) Website for this program is http://www.hwtears.com . Even if your son decides not to use cursive (it may be hard for him to change from printing at his age), it will help him learn to read cursive.
For a 12yo, typically this is an age when you want to teach a dysgraphic typing skills. Schools sometimes will provide an Alpha-Smart or other keyboarding tool equipped with word prediction and spellcheck capabilities. People on the Dysgraphia list can provide more information about what exactly is available these days. If the school won’t provide it, you can purchase these keyboards yourself.
Quite a few dysgraphics have difficulty learning keyboarding skills. A program that I have not known to fail yet is called “Keyboarding Skills” by Diana Hanbury King, available from http://www.epsbooks.com . Keyboarding and using a word processor can help a lot with spelling and punctuation skills because of the constant visual cueing and repetition of corrections.
Also, for spelling, you might want to try a program at home that is usually very helpful for poor spellers. This is called “Sequential Spelling” and is available from http://www.avko.org. For a 12yo, I would probably start with book #1 of the regular series, possibly do book #2 also, and then switch to the “Adult” version of the program (moves more quickly than the regular program, and tends to work well with teens). There are some tips for using this program that can make it move faster and work more efficiently. If you decide to go with it, post here and I will provide the tips that have worked for some of my students.
nancy
My daughter was like that before taking gymnastics. We found that the strengthening of her hand, arm and back muscles from gymnastics drastically improved her handwriting visually. She now has some of the nicest print. She still continues to struggle with capitalization, punctuation and spelling. Even though her handwriting has improved, she uses a laptop with a special program to help her write. This allows her to not worry so much about her spelling so she can get more words down.
You can request an Assistive Technology Assessment to get him help for the writing so that he doesn’t struggle so much with large assignments. You can also request an OT assessment to get help for the handwriting.