Everything You Need To Know About A Dysgraphia Child

Parenting is a challenging full time job, especially with children having special needs or disorders. One such disorder is dysgraphia; it is a neurologically-based learning issue where a child is a reluctant writer and struggles with handwriting. This is a disorder that is more than the laziness and lack of motivation of the child, with parents of such children may wonder why writing is so hard for their child.

Dysgrapia and its symptoms:

It is quite possible for teachers, nanny, or parents to mistake this condition as reluctance, the child being unmotivated or lazy; but this is far from the truth. The child has trouble expressing his/her ideas and thoughts in writing.

Understanding dysgraphia in a child means knowing the important symptoms. The symptoms of this most challenging learning disorder would vary from child to child and also in the degree of intensity.

Here are some important symptoms of dysgraphia in children:

One of the most significant symptoms of dysgraphia is that the child finds the process of writing to be very difficult. He/she may find it very difficult to form letters, numbers and words. However these children may find it easy to express ideas verbally.

It is also found that children with this writing disorder may find it hard to spell properly and follow grammar rules. He/she may also have difficulty with comprehension, with difficulty in understanding and retaining what one learnt; this is due to their difficulty of intensely concentrating on the writing. It is also found that children with dysgraphia have problems organizing their ideas and thoughts into the written expression.

It is a pity that a child with dysgraphia who has issues with handwriting will have a tight or awkward pencil grip and may tire quickly while writing. The handwriting of such a child is illegible and inconsistent and it is common to see poorly formed letters, numbers, and words. This child may write slowly and has a tendency to even avoid writing entirely.

However it is significant to note that this child may enjoy typing on a computer; it helps to encourage him/her to develop strong keyboarding skills. Also a computer could help the child master spelling skills by the use of the spell check feature.

Children with this writing ability could also have spatial and orientation difficulties when writing letters and numbers. This can manifest itself in various ways in spacing and positioning of letters, words, and lines of written text, spacing and positioning of columns of numbers in math problems and maintenance of margins on a page of written text.

I will soon come up with ways to help a child with dysgraphia; the child needs to be dealt with patience by teachers, parents and caregivers. Set attainable goals and encourage the child on his achievements.  

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