Dysgraphia

The National Center for Learning Disabilities has been my favorite resourcesince discovering that Gabriel has a learning disability.  http://www.ncld.org/ 

I had always claimed that Gabriel had "The worlds worst handwriting" that he was meant to be a "doctor based on his handwriting".  Leo and I were no strangers to the amount of tears homework brought because we would make Gabe erase and rewrite trying to get him to put more effort in being neat.  When Gabriel would complain about his hand hurting or cramping up I just thought he was stalling or trying to get out of his homework.  School and Homework are very important in our home. 

After Gabriel's evaluations from the school district I reviewed this checklist against a sample of Gabriel's handwriting.  It was then I learned that my years of concern about his handwriting were not a silly over reacting notion.  I should have pushed harder when I expressed my concerns to his teachers.  I was told "He is a boy" "It will come" "Yes he has bad handwriting but I have seen worse." "Do some hand strengthening excersizes."  Never once did anyone take my concern seriously and since he was always getting good grades I just assumed he didn't care how his handwriting looked.  I should have listened to my gut that there was a problem, because it is a real problem.

What I have learned is that Gabriel fits the profile of Dysgraphia perfectly.  Reading about this became an A HA moment.  All those years I thought Gabriel was just trying to get out of writing well it turns out that with Dysgraphia the act of writing is physically difficult.  Handwriting requires a complex set of motor and information processing skills.  It can lead to problems with spelling, poor handwriting, and putting thoughts on paper.  This answers so much about Gabriel.  He is a great story teller but whenever I ask him to write it down he freezes, he simply cannot think about what to write.  People with Dysgraphia struggle to organize letters, numbers and words on a line.  Dysgraphia is not only about sloppy handwriting.  It is a type of processing disorder.  It is based on either or both visual spatial difficulties which is a difficulty in processing what the eye sees or a language processing difficulty which is the difficulty in processing what the ear hears.  Dysgraphia is a life long disability but you can teach a child how to over come most of this challenge and give him tools to use to assist him. 

Below is the checklist from http://www.ncld.org/types-learning-disabilities/dysgraphia/common-warning-signs-of-dysgraphia-in-children-in-grades-3-8  After the checklist I have included 3 samples of Gabriel's handwriting with comments regarding how to spot the dysgraphia inside of the mess.  When you look at these samples please remember that he is in the 4th grade and will turn 10 years old in May. 

For At Least the Past Six Months, My Child Has Had Trouble:

Writing:

• Gripping a pencil comfortably when writing or drawing.
• Writing neatly, evenly, and legibly.
• Using either printed or cursive (or mixing the two styles).
• Leaving consistent spacing between letters and words.
• Writing on a line or within margins.
• Copying letters and numbers neatly and accurately.
• Spelling even familiar words correctly.
• Being consistent in spelling.
• Writing/printing neatly and without a lot of cross-outs and erasures
• Expressing written ideas in an organized way.
• Preparing outlines and organizing written work.
• Writing without saying the words aloud.
• Thinking of words to write.
• Remembering to use all the words he intends to in his written work.
• Focusing on the meaning of what he writes; (because of the physical demands during writing)
• Maintaining energy and easy posture when writing/drawing.

Math:

• Aligning numbers correctly when doing math problems.

Social-Emotional:

• Being motivated and confident about writing.
• Taking pride in written work.

If your child displays several of these warning signs, talk with a professional right away. 

These are his recent handwriting samples I took a picture of from his LAL tests. 

Notice how on the first line his lower case r is the same size as his capital case I.
There is a huge space gap between the words revealed and Koko in the first line.
On the second line see how most of the letters drop below the line and the
words tend to run together.  Notice the size of the period on the third line. On
the fifth line see how the period is immediately followed by the beginning of
the next sentence.  See how on line 5 he is able to spell the word friends correctly
but incorrectly on line 7.   

On the first question notice how he is not making proper use of the space
available so he has to squeeze the rest of his sentence underneath the line.
On the second question he forgot to use a capital B.  Again he is not using the
space he is given appropriately and has to squeeze the rest underneath
the second line.  The last question he begins his sentence at the halfway point
on the line. His handwriting already looks painful and unreadable.

This was a bonus/extra credit question.  I was impressed at how neatly he wrote
Even though this is his neat handwriting you can see immediately the first word
One, the letter are all the same size.  He then adds a huge space before his next word
which again is supposed to be a lower case word but takes up the whole space on the line. 
See how the L in both Long(s) are capitols even though he is not beginning another
sentence.  You can see how the first two lines he took care to be neat but by
the fourth line his writing becomes sloppy and more difficult to read.