Therapy for dysgraphia

Learning disability called dysgraphia affects the person’sability to recognize letter form, understand relationships between the writtenletters, spoken words and sounds, and the ability to write down letters. This problem is recognizedas a subtype of learning disability in expressive or basic writing and in thefollowing lines we will talk about this problem.

Causes & Symptoms

Fine motor skills seem to be the main reason why this condition is developed.Once skills like writing movement, muscle coordination and motor memory are weaken, the dysgraphia may develop. Also, some of the blame may go to themotor, perceptual, visual and language centers in the brain. Some studies showthat the dysgraphia may be caused by a hereditary factor. Symptoms of thiscondition have been seen among people who had a stroke or a brain injury.

Dysgraphia will cause written language difficulties and these are usually verysevere difficulties. People would experience them after providing them with theinstructions. People with this condition usually have problems with theillegible, spelling error and reversals in their handwriting. Languageprocessing may also pose problems for them along with making the connectionsbetween the ideas and the words representing these ideas.

Comprehensive educational and psychological testing will be needed for diagnosing this condition. Tests will evaluate the writing skills and provide some insight in their writing processing. After this information is gathered, the treatment plan will be made. Assessment must be done if you think that your child is having dysgraphia. Take your child to the school's principal or to the advising office if the child is at campus. IDEA regulates the terms used for the dysgraphia so the school your child is attending may have a different term for it, but it is basically the same.

Treatment

IEP, or the individual's educational program, can be developed by use of numeroustherapies and methods. These methods focus on the development of motor-muscularskills, hand coordination, pencil grip and other fine motor skills. Theconnections between the words, sounds and letters are very important and theseprograms help people make these connections. There is also a possibility ofspeech recognition and keyboard use.

Writing is seriously impaired among people who are suffering from dysgraphia, but they may have other abilities improved. These people try to overcome thisproblem and they put their whole effort in this, but the lack of success maylead to great fatigue and frustration, which is why people may recognize themas lazy. Writing seems very easy to other people and this is why they do notunderstand why persons with dysgraphia are having so much trouble with it.People with this problem have to keep their self-esteem and this can only be donewith the help of a positive learning experience.