Dysgraphia 

What is dysgraphia?

Now called a ‘specific learning disability in the written expression’

• Dysgraphia is a specific learning difficulty affecting a person’s writing ability

• It affects handwriting, spelling and the ability to express ideas in writing

• Writing is laborious

• Fine motor skills may be weak

• Dysgraphia often co-occurs with dyslexia, ADHD and dyspraxia

What you might see:

• Difficulty with fine motor skills - tasks such as buttoning shirts, playing with small legos

• Difficulty with forming letters, spacing letters correctly and writing on a line

• Poor pencil grip

• Trouble with remembering how letters are formed

• Mixing up of uppercase and lowercase letters

• Difficulty in copying

• Illegible handwriting

Accommodations:

• Provide a range of pencil grips

• Use of assistive technology e.g. iPad, Chromebook, speech recognition software

• Allow extra time for tests

• Provide paper with different coloured or darker lines

• Eliminate the need for neatness

• Give alternative ways of showing learning e.g. video, PowerPoint, poster