Dysgraphia and fine motor skills-accommodations

[Anonymous]

Our DD has dysgraphia but it seems to manifest itself in all her fine motors skills.

Would love to hear what accommodations kids are having for their dysgraphia that are broader than writing. For example, when my daughter has a lab she generally defers to her partner to do the fine motor elements (pouring, dissecting, etc) and she offers the brains. But she doesn’t have any formal accommodations for this.

Do others have their accommodations written more broadly so they encompass all fine motor activities? Our daughter has a final coming up that requires her to do some of these fine motor based activities without a partner and I’m suddenly thinking maybe we missed some obvious accommodations. She’s capable of doing this independently but the quality is likely to be lower than for kids that have better fine motor control.

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry, I don’t have any experience to help.

A parallel that may help you think it through, though, might be my kid’s dyslexia. His disability means spelling isn’t graded when he writes a story, because the point is commuting the story. He can dictate it, use speech to text, use a spell checker, etc. Those are accommodations that allow him to show his skill in writing. But he still does take spelling tests and those are graded, because the skill that is being assessed is spelling. He may fail. That’s a bummer, but the fact is the skill being assessed is one in which he is weak.

For your daughter, I think if the skill is learning anatomy, your suggested accommodation might work. If the skill is lab techniques, though, then she would be graded on dissection. I don’t know what that would be important, but just wanted to share some thought process for how you might approach the convo with the school.

[Anonymous]

How old is she that she’s doing labs? DS is now grown but when young he had respond in text booklet, typing and scribe. In certain situations where typing wasn’t feasible, a staff member would write for him. He wasn’t graded for artistic ability in art but for effort. I don’t recall him expressing frustration in science class though his fine motor skills affected him across a wide range of situations due to a muscle weakness. For example, he couldn’t cut well and he would struggle to open a container. I would see if you can replicate the tasks of the lab at home (minus chemicals) to help with specific skills/strategies. It takes time to get accommodations put in place. If your daughter doesn’t have an IEP or 504 and attends public, it’s unrealistic to expect them to be provided in time for a final. Though if in a private school, the staff may be very responsive. DS attended a private school where I could make a suggestion in the morning and see it implemented within hours or at most days.

[Anonymous]

She is a high schooler but this is a college class. We aren’t expecting a change of accommodations this semester (although she may mention it in advance to the professor in case she truly needs help). I’m asking more because I expect this will not be the last time she had a lab.

Our experience is the disability support teams wants to be helpful but I think this has reminded us that we may not be great at predicting all the situations where the challenges present.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She is a high schooler but this is a college class. We aren’t expecting a change of accommodations this semester (although she may mention it in advance to the professor in case she truly needs help). I’m asking more because I expect this will not be the last time she had a lab.

Our experience is the disability support teams wants to be helpful but I think this has reminded us that we may not be great at predicting all the situations where the challenges present.

tell her to go see the university disability services to see what they can do for her. With paperwork, they can have it as an accomodation for classes next semester. She can try talking to profs one on one, but that is hit or miss w/o accomdations letter from disability services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She is a high schooler but this is a college class. We aren’t expecting a change of accommodations this semester (although she may mention it in advance to the professor in case she truly needs help). I’m asking more because I expect this will not be the last time she had a lab.

Our experience is the disability support teams wants to be helpful but I think this has reminded us that we may not be great at predicting all the situations where the challenges present.

You hit the nail on the head that you can’t always predict what situations will present challenges. It’s been the most frustrating part of my parenting journey as mom to 3 kids with disabilities. In this context, it makes perfect sense for her to approach the professor. It certainly can’t hurt. While I don’t know where your daughter attends, we did find the office of student disability at both MC and UMD to be very supportive and accommodating. What struck me was they offered accommodations we never even considered asking for based on their experience. I expected to have to fight as we did for IEPS/504s and found they sincerely wanted to help.