What Is Dysgraphia?
Dysgraphia is a learning difficulty that impacts a person’s writing skills. Despite access to adequate education and instruction, individuals with dysgraphia may struggle to put their thoughts into written words. This can lead to a wide range of symptoms at different ages. The first signs of dysgraphia are commonly noticed in the person’s childhood, during the child’s introduction to writing at school.
Dysgraphia is an umbrella term for various issues with writing assignments. While developmental dysgraphia appears when the child starts learning to write, people at any age can develop acquired dysgraphia linked to a brain injury or illness. Diagnosing dysgraphia and providing access to early treatment are crucial steps towards accommodating individuals with this learning difficulty.
Signs of dysgraphia include difficulties in various cognitive areas linked to the writing process, such as:
- Fine motor skills
- Language processing
- Organisation and conceptualisation
- Spatial perception
- Working memory (ability to store and use information in your brain)
- Letter formation case and ability to manipulate numbers and symbols
How Dysgraphia Affects Writing?
Many professionals define dysgraphia as a set of challenges with the person’s skills related to transcription. This affects the basic cognitive skills that allow us to write, such as handwriting, spelling, and typing. Although not everyone with unclear handwriting has to be diagnosed with dysgraphia, unclear and inconsistent handwriting is a common indication of this disorder.
People with dysgraphia usually take more time and effort to write neatly than their peers. Children and adults with dysgraphia may write slowly and struggle to express their thoughts on paper. Furthermore, these individuals find it hard to form letters, which leads to the improper spelling of many words and phrases.
Different Types of Dysgraphia
Depending on the symptoms and causes, experts recognise six main types of dysgraphia. Understanding dysgraphia and its effects starts with acknowledging all the specific forms of this learning difficulty. Below are listed the different types of dysgraphia.
Dyslexic Dysgraphia
Individuals with dyslexic dysgraphia find it hard to write legibly unless the written words are copied from a particular source. The person’s copied writing or drawings can be clear to their peers and teachers. Although this type of dysgraphia doesn’t affect the person’s fine motor skills, it still leads to poor spelling. Despite the name, not all people with dyslexic dysgraphia necessarily have dyslexia.
Motor Dysgraphia
Motor dysgraphia primarily affects a person’s fine motor skills. People may struggle with poor muscle tone, weak dexterity, and motor clumsiness. These issues prevent them from holding a pen or pencil correctly. Their written expression usually ranges from messy to illegible, even when it is copied from another source. It takes significant effort and time for individuals with motor dysgraphia to reach quality letter formation in brief writing samples.
Spatial Dysgraphia
Spatial dysgraphia is where a person’s lack of spatial awareness affects their writing skills. For example, an individual with spatial dysgraphia may have trouble determining the proper amount of space between words or staying within the lines while writing on a piece of paper. People with this type of dysgraphia produce often have unreadable handwriting.
Phonological Dysgraphia
This type of dysgraphia affects the ability to spell unfamiliar and phonetically irregular words. People with phonological dysgraphia may find it hard to memorise different phonemes and put them in the proper sequence to write a word.
Lexical Dysgraphia
While individuals with lexical dysgraphia are able to spell, they usually rely on standard sound-to-letter patterns and frequently misspell irregular words. This type of dysgraphia is more common in less phonetic languages, such as English and French. Lexical dysgraphia rarely appears in school-age children.
Аcquired Dysgraphia
Acquired dysgraphia, also known as agraphia, is defined as a partial or total impairment of a person’s writing skills due to neurological injury. Dysgraphia usually develops in adults as a result of a stroke or another type of brain injury, especially injuries to the left parietal lobe. Other known causes of acquired dysgraphia include various neurological conditions (brain tumour and vascular disease) and degenerative conditions (such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease).
Signs and Symptoms of Dysgraphia in Children and Adults
The earliest signs of dysgraphia typically appear as the child starts learning to write at school. However, in some cases, this learning difficulty can remain undiagnosed until adolescence or even adulthood.
Dysgraphia symptoms usually change as the person ages. While children with dysgraphia mainly struggle with fine motor skills and mechanics of written expression, adolescents and adults also have issues with grammar, comprehension, and syntax. Below are listed the common symptoms of dysgraphia throughout various stages of the individual’s life:
- Difficulty grasping the formation of letters and their shape
- Painful, tight, and awkward pen or pencil grip due to fine motor skills
- Struggling to stay within the paper margins
- Trouble organising and articulating your ideas on paper
- Unclear or inconsistent handwriting, including different shapes, irregular combinations of upper-case and lower-case letters, as well as cursive and print styles
Causes of Dysgraphia
Developmental dysgraphia in children is typically linked to the impairment of orthographic coding – a specific aspect of working memory responsible for remembering words and the hand movements required to write them. Like most learning disabilities and difficulties, dysgraphia can run in families or be related to premature birth. On the other hand, dysgraphia in adults usually develops due to stroke, neurological conditions, and traumatic injury to the brain’s left parietal lobe.
Dysgraphia Diagnosis
A team of several specialists is qualified to diagnose dysgraphia, including a paediatrician or a GP, a psychologist, and an occupational therapist. Before the psychologist can diagnose dysgraphia, your GP should rule out other possible conditions linked to writing difficulties. The assessment involves the following steps:
- IQ tests
- Academic tests
- Fine motor skill challenges
- Writing tests (including copying words and writing sentences)
During the assessment, the specialist will closely observe various aspects of the person’s writing process, such as pencil grip and hand position. As per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), dysgraphia symptoms should be present for at least six months so that medical experts establish a diagnosis.
Why Is Dysgraphia Diagnosis Critical?
Like any other learning disability or difficulty, early diagnosis of dysgraphia enables people to receive the support, accommodation, and treatment needed to reach their full potential. Early access to learning strategies can reduce the negative impact of dysgraphia on the person’s learning skills. Support from family members and adequate accommodation in the classroom or the workplace can make a significant difference in the lives of people with this difference.
Treatment Options for Dysgraphia
Dysgraphia has various signs and affects each person in a unique way. Therefore, its management and treatment should be person-centred and focus on the individual’s specific difficulties.
There are currently no medications for dysgraphia. However, educational interventions enable people with this learning difficulty to find new, effective ways of written expression. Standard treatment options for dysgraphia include the following:
- Medications for challenges that may cooccur with dysgraphia (such as ADHD)
- Occupational therapy
- PBS support
- Learning strategies tailored to the person’s age and abilities
Helping Children with Dysgraphia at Home
There are various fun ways to help your child organise their thoughts at home. For example, you can engage your child in storytelling exercises wherein they would share any experience they want in a structured way. Furthermore, your child can record their speech on a smartphone or another device so that they can recall their storytelling afterwards.
You can make the writing process more memorable for your school-age child by engaging them in activities involving multisensory materials and large motor movements. For instance, the child can make letters of damp sand in a plastic tub or spray shaving cream letters on the tile wall while bathing.
There are lots of ways of providing help and support, and reminding children that they have great verbal expression, an essential skill, is important.
Support for Students with Dysgraphia
Students with dysgraphia can benefit from several classroom adjustments, such as trying different types of pencils and pens, paper with raised lines, and printed lesson outlines to help them take notes.
Teachers can alleviate writing issues in students with dysgraphia by employing supportive education methods in their lessons. Below are listed some measures teachers should take to accommodate students with this learning difficulty:
- Giving additional time to complete writing assignments
- Offering alternatives to written tasks (e.g. oral reports)
- Giving a thorough explanation of the grading system and sharing previous assignments
- Providing assignments with previously filled name, title, and date
- Helping the student break writing tasks into smaller chunks
- Allowing the student to use assistive technology in class, such as an audio recorder or speech-to-text
Dysgraphia and Dyslexia
Dyslexia and dysgraphia are learning difficulties affecting a person’s language skills, making them easy to confuse. Dysgraphia causes challenges in the physical act of writing and makes it hard for individuals to express their thoughts in written form. On the other hand, dyslexia primarily causes difficulty reading and sometimes also affects writing, spelling, and speaking.
These differences can cause frustration and confusion at school or work, leading to anxiety and low self-esteem. Access to proper accommodation and support is crucial for individuals with dyslexia and dysgraphia to live independent and fulfilling lives.
Living With Dysgraphia
While there are still some misconceptions and stigma around dysgraphia, treatments and accommodation for this learning difficulty are more available by the day. With proactive support and assistance, individuals with dysgraphia can live fulfilling and successful lives.
Teachers should undergo training for the accommodation of students with dysgraphia in the classroom and provide them with special assistive technology. Similarly, employers can accommodate people with dysgraphia in the workplace by giving them extra time for written tasks or letting them express their ideas in alternative ways.
How Can Unique Community Services Support Individuals With Dysgraphia?
At Unique Community Services, we aim to reimagine the treatment of individuals with learning disabilities and difficulties according to the highest standards of humanised care. Our clinicians offer quality learning strategies for people with dysgraphia to improve their writing skills. We deliver person-centred support services for adults and children with writing difficulties in their own homes.
Our trained clinicians outline a personalised plan catering to the individual’s needs, preferences, and boundaries. Receiving home care services means you can overcome your writing difficulties and excel at school or work while staying close to your family and engaging with your local community.
If you need a CQC-regulated home care provider for yourself or a loved one with dysgraphia, Unique Community Services is the right place for you. We offer high-quality care services to people with learning difficulties in Bristol and Manchester.
Contact us now, and we will create a tailored plan catering to your requirements.
