Dysgraphia - The Writing Disability

What is Dysgraphia?

Dysgraphia can be defined as a learning disability that affects writing powers. It is evident in difficulty with spellings, poor handwriting and other writing problems. In other words, it refers to extremely poor writing skills and trouble with expressing what the individual feels.

It results due to some complexity in the motor skills and information processing skills. However, they are not enough to be called dysgraphia in an individual. A child may suffer from these problems during childhood but improve with age.

Only if these problems persist and need professional help either in children or adults, then it can be said that the individual is suffering from this learning disability i.e. dysgraphia.

Dysgraphia Signs and Symptoms

An individual suffering from dysgraphia may exhibit these symptoms:

• Bad and illegible handwriting
• Tight and awkward grip on pencil and body position
• Speaking aloud while writing
• Difficulty in drawing or writing
• Problems in syntax and sentence structure
• Problems in organizing thoughts on papers
• Getting tired quickly after doing a little work
• Unfinished writing work
• Strong verbal but poor writing skills
• No consistency in work
• Labored writing
• Spelling errors and random punctuation, syllable omissions giving an impression of illiteracy

Causes of Dysgraphia

Sequential and rational information processing is said to one of the underlying causes for dysgraphia. This causes difficulty with the sequence of the words and letters causing handwriting problems. This causes slow speed and difficulty in writing in order.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is also suspected for causing dysgraphia in children and adults. People with ADHD have difficulty in organizing and putting words in sequence as they process information at a very rapid rate. This does not leave any time for fine motor coordination to keep up with their mental processes.

Writing difficulty can result from general auditory or language processing weakness. Problem in understanding language leads to problem in expression too. This hampers the speed and writing skills. However, none of these reasons has been declared as the sole or the main reasons for dysgraphia. Research is still underway for unveiling this learning disability.

Helping People Suffering from Dysgraphia

If your child or any family member is suffering from dysgraphia, you can help them overcome this problem and achieve success with love, support and help in writing with different options.

These helping options may fall in various categories. Let us view some of them:

• Encouraging students to express their thoughts and write them down without any attention to spellings and punctuation
• Asking them to draw pictures for each piece of writing
• Recording the ideas of students and make them listen to it several times and write them
• Asking them to check their spellings on a computer
• Making them write as much as possible. This will help them with their speed as well as bring an improvement to their spellings
• Asking students to read aloud as they write, this will enable them to consider what they have written
• Giving them extra time for written tasks so that they may be able to finish their work
• Asking students what they prefer to write on or how they want to do it. This will help in giving them confidence and they might work better

Consult a specialist on how can you help your child or loved one with this learning disability. The doctor may provide you with some instructions which you can practice at home. There are also special classes for such students where they are helped with dysgraphia.

A person with dysgraphia will benefit from help from both specialists and loved ones. The best you can do for an individual suffering from dysgraphia is trying out different methods and ideas to check what works best for them. Dysgraphia is something that can occur to anybody but with proper care and help, it can be overcome.