dysTalk My Child - Dysgraphia Handwriting - Forum - dysTalk

I have a 8 year old child, she was born 12 weeks early and has cerebral palsy ( she had brain haemorrhages) . I deferred entry into school until she was 51/2.

She has huge problems writing, her school recently carried out a LASS test and said the only area she scored low on was spelling in the 3rd centile . In fact, she scored very high on visual memory, reasoning, auditory memory and her books she gets from school are KS2 level 12. Her verbal communication skills are excellent and she is a very confident little girl. I have asked for her to be referred to the educational psychologist but the school is reluctant. I don't if I am just being an overprotective mum. I am a bit concerned that she wouldn't get access to an educational psychologist until she is really struggling.

30/11/2010 11:13:43
sheltie (Member)

My son is 9 and has been diagnosed as dyslexic/dygaphia. I noticed from an early age he avoided writing & drawing. By the time he was in year 2 he was very distressed and frustrated, fortunately his school were very good(they suspected dyspraxia. Like your daughter he scored highly on visual memory, reasoning and his reading is excellent. He scored 72 out of 75 on the NFER Reading test. His processing speed is in the 7th percentile whilst his general ability is in the 92nd. What i am saying is you should keep pushing the school otherwise her confidence will suffer. there is all kinds of technology to help and probably the best thing to do immediately is to get her on a typing program and as she gets older or if typing is also difficult speech recognition software. DON'T GIVE UP!

10/02/2011 08:40:41
Di

Di many thanks. Over the past few months I have learnt alot about dyslexia and dysgraphia. I am convinced she has severe dysgraphia. Her school has been very supportive. We are still awaiting to see the educational psychologist but the school now have additional support from a classroom assistant and she is getting support from the learning support teacher. She now has her own computer and is using voice activated and predictive typing which works for her because she is able to read exceptionally well. Because she is in a composite class being one of the youngest children her confident was taking a knock from comments made by some of the older children, she had been put in a group with some of the children closer to her age. As a result she feels good about herself because her group get her to read out the instructions and they understand better than the older kids that she needs to use her computer to write. I don't think the school fully understand what is going on but I really do feel they are motivated to try to figure out how best to help her.

05/03/2011 09:45:18
sheltie (Member)