Know all about writing disorders in children or dysgraphia
Dysgraphia or writing disorders in children is experienced by some children that have great difficulty in putting down their thoughts in writing and could lead to writing that is not only illegible, with letters and words that are not just properly written, but could lead to excessive errors even when enough time and attention is given to doing writing well. This disorder has made many parents puzzled with them assuming that their children are lazy, do not want to make adequate efforts and are generally careless.
However it is best for you to understand as a parent that it is not just additional writing practice that helps, for writing disorders in children are similar to late developments in childhood, with the warning signals for this disorder being delay in speech, language development, learning gross motor activities like catching a ball, jumping and running and other fine motor activities involving manipulating objects effectively in their hands. It is depressing, yet true that dysgraphia makes a great impact on a childs success at school and later on life, so this condition involves immediate attention to reduce the impact of the problem.
Lets look at some ways to overcome dysgraphia with appropriate diagnosis
It is significant to note that pediatricians, occupational therapists, and educational psychologists could play a vital role in not only identifying the writing disorders early, but could play a great role in reducing the impact of the problem. An occupational therapist plays a major role in not only finding out areas for the problem, but can also help to bring about a significant change at school with appropriate therapeutic interventions and activities. In addition educational psychologists can help with making psycho educational assessment, with early diagnosis helping to contain the problem effectively.
Writing disorders could result from specific causes like motor coordination problems, spelling disabilities, or also from language disabilities, with motor dysgraphia resulting from visual-spatial perception problems, motor planning deficits, executive dysfunction and other anatomical problems. Non specific writing problems could generate from poor school attendance, psychosocial deprivations and mental retardation, with still others suffering from want of instructions in the written language.
It is a very significant factor to note that age specific remedies for deficiency in writing skills is recommended for age specific children problems, while bypass strategies are very useful for dealing in specific deficiencies. Most elementary school children with writing disorders would be benefitted with practice being given to grip the pencil, exercises to prepare children for writing, and practice combines with instructions given directly to improve fluency of the language and organization of the writing skill.
When a child reaches higher primary classes or middle school, it would be highly beneficial to use bypass strategies for children with writing disorders. It has been found that these strategies that make use of computers and other devices have proved to be very beneficial. In addition, many have gained advantage through avoidance of any negative reinforcement at any cost, with increasing the time given to perform writing assignments, with shortening assignments, and lastly with special grading of the content rather than the quality. Many children have showed improved performance with being assessed orally and also being allowed to make oral presentation. This has helped many children with such problems to receive a boost in their self-esteem and self confidence.
It is revealing to note that writing disorder studies in children reveal that emphasis on writing as a process with emphasis on writing being more for purposes of communication only would greatly help motivate such children to write for purposes that are real. This would also help create compositions that were more based on editing, planning, revision and drafting. As a last word it is very true to say that the right combination of right diagnosis, direct instruction techniques used for remedies, using bypass strategies and other strategies to assist in the cure of writing disorders in children they would be greatly helped to overcome their deficiencies in the written language.