Technology and Dysgraphia

[Charlie Girl]

Introduction
Dysgraphia is a learning disorder that affects the ability to write. This paper will discuss the possible causes and symptoms of dysgraphia, and how word processing supports students with dysgraphia.

Many students with dyslexia also have dysgraphia, although dysgraphia can occur by itself. Hardman, Drew, and Egan (1996) note that teachers often remark on the poor handwriting abilities of the learning disabled and that they have difficulties staying on the lines and spacing letters. Niemann (1996) talks of a letter written by a young teenager to his parents. She notes “the illegible words were not even written on any lines. They zigzagged up and down the page. They looked as if they were not organized in any logical fashion whatsoever.” In short, indecipherable.

These problems can be pretty striking and yet give

www.derrel.net/reflect/dysgraphia.htm

[misty]

This part:

Merely making computers accessible to the learning disabled has little benefit.Many are using computers only for the delivery of content, drill and practice, and final editing and printing of writing.” I have seen this last phenomenon where fifth grade teachers have their students write their papers by hand. They then bring them into the computer lab where the students keyboard their papers into the computer. Students who have trouble writing derive no benefit from this practice.

My daughter was in 5th grade this past year & that is EXACTLY what happened! it made me SO MAD! By the time she got her paper to the computer to type the final copy, she had no idea what her sloppy, misspelled words said!

[Charlie Girl]

My son hasn't been diagnosed with dysgraphia but he had a terrible time learning to write and still has a very sloppy hand.

In third grade, his teacher started allowing him to write many of his papers on the computer and e-mail them to her since we didn't have a printer. The difference in his abilities was remarkable in a very short time.

When he didn't have to worry about forming letters and words and then could edit without the laborious task of writing even more, his great imagination and creativity came shining through.

He still had to do most of his work by hand so that he would improve with his handwriting skills, but when the object was to develop the mental aspect of writing, that computer made it so much easier.

[susieb]

My son uses a laptop-sized word processor called an Alphasmart. He got it in 4th grade and has used it in his school work ever since. He's a pretty good typist and a terrific writer. He has a lot of imagination and sees things in a different way than others. I knew he was like this but wasn't able to get it out when he tried to write it by hand. I saw his written work blossom after he got the alphasmart. We did the same thing, we started e-mailing homework to teachers and that helped his organization and turning in homework, which he's always had trouble with. It seems like when he knows the teacher has a copy of his hw in her inbox, he doesn't have as much of a problem turning in the paper copy. I think he tends to panic and freeze when a teacher asks for an assignment to be turned in. He overlooks it and thinks he hasn't put it in his notebook. I can't tell you the number of times I've found homework in his notebook that he was supposed to turn in!