Dyslexia - Dawn Matthews

Last week I had (yet another) mother phone me because her child had been diagnosed as having “Dysgraphia”.

 

“Can you help my child?” she asked. I’m used to this now and I always say, “first I would have to assess the child to establish what causes his problems”.

 

“He’s got Dysgraphia she repeated.” And she had every right to expect that this was a good and useful diagnosis, after all she had paid over $300 for it.

 

But in fact labelling a child as “dysgraphic” is not a useful diagnosis because it tells us nothing about how that child learns or how best to teach that child.

 

The scenario is getting more and more common. This is how it usually goes. The teacher tells the parent that her son/daughter’s handwriting is very poor, pretty illegible and probably also his spelling is poor. The parent or the teacher refers the child to an educational psychologist who carries out extensive testing on him/her. Two weeks later the parent gets a report saying that their son/daughter has “Dysgraphia”. The parents takes this to the school and the boy’s teacher does not really understand what it means. Neither the parents nor teacher has any better idea of how to help the student.

 

I do not see the point in this – and please do get into contact with me if you understand how this diagnosis helps teachers like myself – because I must be missing the point. Dysgraphia is not an English word. In fact it is Latin and Greek in origin, and translated literally it means “problems writing the written word.”

 

So this is where I get confused. The child was referred to a psychologist because he had problems writing the written word and the psychologist comes back with exactly the same diagnosis, but in a foreign language.

 

Now it does seem to me that we could short cut this whole thing, and save the parents, hundreds of dollars if the teacher merely used the foreign language and said, “your son has dysgraphia”.

 

But no, apparently only educational psychologists can diagnose this!

 

So when a parent comes to me with this diagnosis the first thing I have to do is to find out why the child has Dysgraphia. And believe me there are lots of very different reasons for this.

 

“As both a psychologist and teacher I have labeled dysgraphic, I definitely agree with you. Rubbish diagnosis.”

                                                                                                                                                                                    - Dot

 

In my books I stress again and again that giving a kid a label is of no use unless that label tells us why the kid is failing in a certain area and how we can better teach him. This label does not tell us that and I am left to find out why he has problems with writing.

But surely this is what the educational psychologist should have been finding out. Surely this is what s/he was paid for? I am sorry but I do not see the point in hanging a label round a kid’s neck, for the rest of his life unless it helps the kid in some way.

 

Some likely causes of poor handwriting

In order to help clarify this I will list here the various causes of dysgraphia that I have come across in the decade or so this label has been commonly used.

 

• Dyslexia. The majority of them appear to me have dyslexia.

• Dyspraxia. This does not seem to be as common as dyslexia but practically all dyspraxics have dysgraphia, at least when they are young.

• Left-handedness. The world is designed for right-handed people and we write from left to right, which means that left handed people cannot see what they have written as they write and the writing can easily get smudged or the lines get wobbly.

• Poor fine motor control. It is not always obvious why the child has poor motor skills but it is often due to the child being double jointed in his/her fingers. If the child can draw well and does not appear to display poor motor control when drawing then this can usually be ruled out.

• ADHD. I have found this condition to be very rare but unfortunately lots of children seem to get diagnosed with it in Australia.

• Food or additive allergies or sensitivity that takes away the child’s ability to concentrate properly. The child would then have other symptoms as well as dysgraphia. As my autoimmune problems worsened my hands shook more and more and writing became very difficult. At one point it was suggested I had Parkinson's, but as I got better this disappeared.

• A hearing disorder where the child does not always know what s/he is meant to be doing. (Considerably more can be found on this in my books “Dyslexia – How to Win”, and "ADHD Drug Free Cures", available from this web site top menu bar under "shop" on the home page.)

• Holding the pencil in a very awkward way or not resting the hand on the paper when writing. Some children actually hold the pencil in an awkward way when writing and a good way when drawing, especially left handed children, who are trying to see what they have written. Sometimes children do not rest the side of their hand on the paper when writing and this makes it very hard to control the pencil.

• Some problem within the Autistic spectrum where the student’s thoughts are so fast that his/her handwriting cannot keep up.

 

 

Stress

 

Children with any of the above problems and other children who may be going through a stressful time, which could be caused by school problems, such as bullying or family problems such as the parents breaking up, may have difficulties with writing until the problems are sorted out.

 

But we have a multitude of different types of word processors today so why make a student hand write anyway? And certainly please do not mark in all mistakes. This is very degrading to the student.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to establish the cause

 

In order to help with this disorder a teacher has to first determine which of these is causing the problem.

 

The first thing I always do is to ask the child to draw a picture for me. If the drawing is good with good motor control and clean lines then we can rule out motor problems as these would manifest themselves in drawing as well as writing. I also observe how the child is holding his/her pencil to establish that s/he has a good grip.

 

Next I ask him/her to write each letter so that I can check to see if s/he is holding his pencil in the same way as s/he did when drawing. It is surprising how many children hold their pencil properly when drawing and awkwardly when writing.

I also check to ensure that the letters are written correctly and that the child’s hand is resting on the paper when s/he is writing.

 

I observe any difference in concentration or stress that may occur during writing but did not when drawing. If a child gets very stressed when writing but not when drawing this probably means the problem is due to difficulty in trying to put his/her thoughts into words. This could indicate dyslexia or dyspraxia. if the child cannot spell well s/he is going to have great problems with writing.

 

I talk to the child to establish whether s/he has problems describing things in words when merely talking. If s/he does then it not surprising that the child also has problems writing words. Some children, especially children who were walking very early and did not talk until quite late, or had stutters when young do not seem to naturally translate thoughts into words. If this is the case then you must first talk to the child and get him/her used to giving oral answers to questions before you go back to writing.

 

I also establish whether the child is dyslexic or dyspraxic. There are tick box tests for each of these on this site.

 

Very often with these children the handwriting is poor because they have problems spelling the word, thinking of the content of what they are writing and forming the letters – all at the same time. If this is the case then I usually teach them to word process until the spelling and content has picked up. The problem then usually goes away by itself.

 

I also observe the child to see how stressed or anxious s/he when doing different tasks but I also ask teachers and parents about this because a child can behave completely differently at school or at home.

 

Often the underlying cause of the problem is a combination of more than one of these things.

 

 

How to help

 

I have written books on helping dyslexic and dyspraxic children so please refer to these.

Motor control can be helped by doing exercises. These can vary from crawling activities to drawing circles with the hand. More is written about this in my book on Dyspraxia.

 

It would seem logical to teach the child to word process as soon as possible because the real bottom line on this is that writing by hand is, in today’s society, a skill that is actually no longer needed. You won’t see children in Bill Gate’s schools writing essays down by hand, so why do we put so much emphasis on it in our schools? Even birthday cards can be sent as emails today. The only writing essential to an adult to do today is some forms, which have to done in capital letters, and his or her signature and oddly this is not taught or practiced as most schools.

 

 

Dyscalculia

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is another name that tells us virtually nothing. The kids having trouble at school with his/her maths and are sent to an educational psychologist who diagnoses “Dyscalculia” which means the child has difficulty or problems with numbers or math. So that’s a help!

 

Usually the child has some other learning difficulty such as dyspraxia or dyslexia, but most of all the child has a problem learning math the way it is taught at his/her school. Find out how the child learns and then teach him/her that way and its amazing how fast some of them can learn. Dyslexic children are not poor at math, but they get behind because of the way it’s taught in most schools.for so many years schools tend to concentrate on arithmetic rather than math concepts and dyslexic, frequently cannot visualise numbers so cannot, lie Albert Einstein, perform quick calculations in their heads without being able to write them down or use a calculators. Calculators are here to stay so why are young students but not adults banned from using them? However a dyspraxic child may always find math difficult.

 

There are two long chapters (including tests aimed at understanding just which concepts have been muddled or misunderstood) about this in my book “Dyslexia – How to Win”, and some help aimed specifically for dyspraxic children in the dyspraxic book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is my experience that most children who are having problems with math need to be taught in a tactile, multi-sensory way. The concepts have to be taught one at a time and gone over until they are completely understood.

Neither dyslexics nor dyspraxics remember facts until the concepts have been completely understood.

 

 

Times tables

 

These are the bane of most dyslexics’ and dyspraxics’ lives. It should always be remembered that mobile phones are very good at times tables and that just about every teenager carries a mobile with him/her all the time. They will, therefore, always have a calculator with them. But rarely, nowadays, do teenagers carry paper or notebooks with them. It may be more useful to teach them how to balance a credit card or do the end of year accounts, because neither phones nor computers are any good at these.

 

Dyslexics do not learn times tables or number bonds just by being told to “go away and learn them”. Many a child has come to me saying, “I have to learn the three times table for homework”! And they call this teaching! In my day we had to chant the tables at the beginning of every day. And I learnt them by age 8.

 

Just the other day a friend told me about a statement a teacher had written on one of her school reports.

 

“Why is it”, the teacher had asked, “that she can learn a song easily enough but not her times tables?”

 

This was a great observation but instead of using it as a criticism the teacher should have realized that the pupil would have learnt her times tables if they had been put to music and made into songs. When singing both sides of the brain are used rather than just the left for remembering times tables.

 

Once you have found out how a pupil learns, teach them that way.