word prediction software?

[Anonymous]

Parents of kids with Dysgraphia,
At what age did your child begin to use word prediction software? Did you find it very helpful? How did you decide how much to use it versus regular typing? Do you recommend one specific product?

My son (severe dysgraphia and adhd) is finishing second grade. He has started keyboarding and enjoys it but it is still such a slow process. At this point, scribing for him is the only productive and efficient way for him to write. He loves to read and has a lot to say -- if I scribe for him he comes up with amazing things. I am trying to encourage more independence ... and thinking about some of these programs.

Thanks so much for advice!

[Anonymous]

Co-writer is what is available at my child's school, and we were given a copy to use at home too.

[Anonymous]

I hit reply too soon! It's helpful -- for my child it takes away the stress of the thought of writing. If there's a writing assignment and the anxiety kicks in, I can just say, "Use Co-Writer," and the task doesn't seem so daunting. She uses it more at home than in the classroom, though it is available to her in the classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hit reply too soon! It's helpful -- for my child it takes away the stress of the thought of writing. If there's a writing assignment and the anxiety kicks in, I can just say, "Use Co-Writer," and the task doesn't seem so daunting. She uses it more at home than in the classroom, though it is available to her in the classroom.

Thanks for the feedback! How old was she when she started using it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents of kids with Dysgraphia,
At what age did your child begin to use word prediction software? Did you find it very helpful? How did you decide how much to use it versus regular typing? Do you recommend one specific product?

My son (severe dysgraphia and adhd) is finishing second grade. He has started keyboarding and enjoys it but it is still such a slow process. At this point, scribing for him is the only productive and efficient way for him to write. He loves to read and has a lot to say -- if I scribe for him he comes up with amazing things. I am trying to encourage more independence ... and thinking about some of these programs.

Thanks so much for advice!

DC has profound dyslexia, dysgraphia and dual type ADHD. He used Co-writer primarily in elementary school and started Kurzweil for MS and HS. He is a rising sophomore in HS now. In third grade he used an Alphasmart. I think they introduced Co-writer around 4th grade. We used summer to work on keyboarding skills. He started with Kurzweil at the end of 6th grade to prepare for HS. Between 7th and 8th he was trained by the county in Dragon Naturally Speaking and he tired in throughout 8th grade, but it added more frustration than it helped. Now he primarily uses the Kurzweil but he will still use Co-writer when he is in Word.

All the extra software has been provided by the county. We are in Fairfax County. We bought him a laptop for 7th grade and it has lasted until now- end of 9th grade. It is beat up, so we are planning to buy another one for 10th-12th. When he goes to college, we will probably buy the Co-Writer in addition to the Kurzweil and we may try Dragon again at some point in the future.

Until he got better at keyboarding, he would dictate most of his longer homework assignments to me or DH. It has only been in the last year or so that his keyboarding has been fast/good enough for him to do most of it himself. Propects look good for him to be on his own by the time he goes to college. He does have the additional issue with dyslexia which impacts his ability for keyboarding successfully just as much as his dysgraphia- if not more.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for the incredibly helpful breakdown, PP. We have been working on keyboarding for a while and plan to do more this summer. I think what is a little disappointing is that my son doesn't feel like he totally "owns" something that he has dictated. Maybe this comes from so much emphasis on handwriting in the early years... but even though we have tried to emphasize that ideas are what matter, and even though he totally accepts having a scribe, I think he feels a little but like he cheated or got unfair help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you so much for the incredibly helpful breakdown, PP. We have been working on keyboarding for a while and plan to do more this summer. I think what is a little disappointing is that my son doesn't feel like he totally "owns" something that he has dictated. Maybe this comes from so much emphasis on handwriting in the early years... but even though we have tried to emphasize that ideas are what matter, and even though he totally accepts having a scribe, I think he feels a little but like he cheated or got unfair help.

Or maybe he is getting that feeling from his teacher(s)? I never would have guessed that my DS's teacher was the one telling DS not to get things scribed because he needed to "own" his work. Until, one day, my DS' teacher called me at home to criticize me for scribing for him, and told me that he thought that my scribing for my son on homework was "undermining his motivation" and that he (the teacher) wanted my DS to "take pride and ownership in his work."

Needless to say, I directed the teacher to read the specific page of my DS's neuropsych report in which the scribing recommendation was detailed for my dysgraphic DS. The report had been sitting on the teacher's desk for more than a month, but the teacher admitted he never read it.

Sometimes you just get a crappy teacher who doesn't believe in learning disabilities. That was our year.

FWIW, my son's dysgraphia improved greatly with explicit special instruction in handwriting, sound/symbol relationships for decoding/encoding, grammar, spelling and punctuation. The school had tried to convince us that dysgraphia could be entirely compensated for by the use of computers, text to speech programs, predictive spellers, etc. Although he had an IEP, they refused to provide him any goals or instruction in the areas of handwriting, spelling,or language usage. The only thing they would provide is that he could come in early before school and use the self-taught touch typing computer program. Our DS did use, in 3rd grade, the full gamut of computer aid the previous PP mentions. But, these computer-aids can't compensate for many of the language-based aspects of my DS's dysgraphia. We pulled him from public and put him in SN private and his writing improved dramatically in less than 6 months. It's still a bit messy, but it is now legible. Whereas before he couldn't even write a sentence, now he can write almost a page.

I would still say that his handwriting ability has not caught up to his brain's ability. Because of that he still uses the computer to write, particularly longer pieces. But, if the homework is only to write a few sentences or paragraph, he can now do that by hand, which is much more functional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you so much for the incredibly helpful breakdown, PP. We have been working on keyboarding for a while and plan to do more this summer. I think what is a little disappointing is that my son doesn't feel like he totally "owns" something that he has dictated. Maybe this comes from so much emphasis on handwriting in the early years... but even though we have tried to emphasize that ideas are what matter, and even though he totally accepts having a scribe, I think he feels a little but like he cheated or got unfair help.

Or maybe he is getting that feeling from his teacher(s)? I never would have guessed that my DS's teacher was the one telling DS not to get things scribed because he needed to "own" his work. Until, one day, my DS' teacher called me at home to criticize me for scribing for him, and told me that he thought that my scribing for my son on homework was "undermining his motivation" and that he (the teacher) wanted my DS to "take pride and ownership in his work."

Needless to say, I directed the teacher to read the specific page of my DS's neuropsych report in which the scribing recommendation was detailed for my dysgraphic DS. The report had been sitting on the teacher's desk for more than a month, but the teacher admitted he never read it.

Sometimes you just get a crappy teacher who doesn't believe in learning disabilities. That was our year.

FWIW, my son's dysgraphia improved greatly with explicit special instruction in handwriting, sound/symbol relationships for decoding/encoding, grammar, spelling and punctuation. The school had tried to convince us that dysgraphia could be entirely compensated for by the use of computers, text to speech programs, predictive spellers, etc. Although he had an IEP, they refused to provide him any goals or instruction in the areas of handwriting, spelling,or language usage. The only thing they would provide is that he could come in early before school and use the self-taught touch typing computer program. Our DS did use, in 3rd grade, the full gamut of computer aid the previous PP mentions. But, these computer-aids can't compensate for many of the language-based aspects of my DS's dysgraphia. We pulled him from public and put him in SN private and his writing improved dramatically in less than 6 months. It's still a bit messy, but it is now legible. Whereas before he couldn't even write a sentence, now he can write almost a page.

I would still say that his handwriting ability has not caught up to his brain's ability. Because of that he still uses the computer to write, particularly longer pieces. But, if the homework is only to write a few sentences or paragraph, he can now do that by hand, which is much more functional.

Thank you for your perspective. Could you recommend your private? I would appreciate that. We have done private OT for years and worked on handwriting at home, but maybe we haven't been going about it the right way. Very little OT time though the IEP. Would love to have strong private school recommendation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you so much for the incredibly helpful breakdown, PP. We have been working on keyboarding for a while and plan to do more this summer. I think what is a little disappointing is that my son doesn't feel like he totally "owns" something that he has dictated. Maybe this comes from so much emphasis on handwriting in the early years... but even though we have tried to emphasize that ideas are what matter, and even though he totally accepts having a scribe, I think he feels a little but like he cheated or got unfair help.

Or maybe he is getting that feeling from his teacher(s)? I never would have guessed that my DS's teacher was the one telling DS not to get things scribed because he needed to "own" his work. Until, one day, my DS' teacher called me at home to criticize me for scribing for him, and told me that he thought that my scribing for my son on homework was "undermining his motivation" and that he (the teacher) wanted my DS to "take pride and ownership in his work."

Needless to say, I directed the teacher to read the specific page of my DS's neuropsych report in which the scribing recommendation was detailed for my dysgraphic DS. The report had been sitting on the teacher's desk for more than a month, but the teacher admitted he never read it.

Sometimes you just get a crappy teacher who doesn't believe in learning disabilities. That was our year.

FWIW, my son's dysgraphia improved greatly with explicit special instruction in handwriting, sound/symbol relationships for decoding/encoding, grammar, spelling and punctuation. The school had tried to convince us that dysgraphia could be entirely compensated for by the use of computers, text to speech programs, predictive spellers, etc. Although he had an IEP, they refused to provide him any goals or instruction in the areas of handwriting, spelling,or language usage. The only thing they would provide is that he could come in early before school and use the self-taught touch typing computer program. Our DS did use, in 3rd grade, the full gamut of computer aid the previous PP mentions. But, these computer-aids can't compensate for many of the language-based aspects of my DS's dysgraphia. We pulled him from public and put him in SN private and his writing improved dramatically in less than 6 months. It's still a bit messy, but it is now legible. Whereas before he couldn't even write a sentence, now he can write almost a page.

I would still say that his handwriting ability has not caught up to his brain's ability. Because of that he still uses the computer to write, particularly longer pieces. But, if the homework is only to write a few sentences or paragraph, he can now do that by hand, which is much more functional.

Thank you for your perspective. Could you recommend your private? I would appreciate that. We have done private OT for years and worked on handwriting at home, but maybe we haven't been going about it the right way. Very little OT time though the IEP. Would love to have strong private school recommendation.

DS's writing has improved significantly at The Siena School; however, it doesn't start until 4th grade. Having all the different aspects of writing explicitly taught -- grammar, decoding/encoding, handwriting, spelling, punctuation, plus reinforcement of right/left up/down strokes and reversals, writing/thought organization, etc. -- has been tremendously helpful. Because our DS has MERLD in addition to dysgraphia and ADD, he really needed explicit systematic instruction in all these areas at once. But what's been just as important as the explicit instruction is that every teacher in every class reinforces the writing appropriately throughout the day.