Reply to Talk to me about dysgraphia--how it was diagnosed, when, and progress?

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[quote=Anonymous]Here are the tests that contributed to my son's dysgraphia diagnosis.

First -- very high verbal WISC, IQ scores.  This isn't necessary for a dysgraphia diagnosis; of course, kids with average IQs have dysgraphia too, but I mention it because my DS was diagnosed by the "significant discrepancy" method, where there is a discrepancy of more than 1 1/2 standard deviations (22 points on scale where 100 points is the median) between IQ and achievement testing.  In my DS' case, his "significant discrepancy was sometimes as large as 3+ deviations.  If a child has an average IQ, then the achievement testing has to be below average or worse (below the bottom 25%ile for sure).

Other tests --

Processing Speed Index of the WISC -- indicating very slow in all these categories, but most relevant to dysgraphia was the symbol copying which is sensitive to graphomotor speed.

Beery Visual Motor Integration -- very high (97th %ile) visual perception scores, very low (12th %) motor coordination.

WIAT--III (achievement testing) 
Subtests -
Alphabet Writing -- 9th percentile
Spelling -- 70th percentile
Sentence Composition -- 70%ile
Writing Fluency (composite) -- 24th %

Math fluency -- 99%ile math problem solving score vs. math fluency in the 61st percentile with indications that pencil work was a problem

The basis of dysgraphia can be different for different kids.  For some it is an issue related to muscle strength for writing, attention issues, executive dysfunction, motor planning issues, auditory processing, or language acquisition issues.

My son had all of these except muscle strength problems. So other tests that were relevant were:

Attention and executive dysfunction --

TEA-CH, IVA and Tower of London scores that were in the single digits, which all indicated ADD-Inattentive and executive dysfunction.

Language Assessment scores --

Auditory Processing --

Test of Auditory Processing Skills  - showed particular difficulty with word discrimination and phonological segmentation, which made it difficult to hear words and then break them up to translate them into the written code (aka spelling).   
 
My DS had both a full neuropsych and a full speech/language assessment.   The totality of the Speech assessment showed that DS had Mixed Expressive Receptive Language Disorder even though he had very strong verbal skills in many areas.  He was also diagnosed with reading disorder (aka dyslexia), which the school disagreed with because they did not consider him to be below grade level, even though his standardized testing showed significantly discrepant strengths and weaknesses in language and reading.

FWIW, our MCPS west-county elementary was basically worthless.  In retrospect, I don't think anyone (gen ed teachers, sped teachers and administrators) had the training to recognize the learning disability nor the training to know how to remediate it.  The school basically responded by stone-walling and denying until we hired a professional advocate.  Then we got an IEP, but the specialized instruction was worthless; it just consisted of a lot of extra prompts and lowered expectations. The school did, however, offer "accommodations" such as extra time, Franklin spell checker, access to the computer for writing along with spell and grammar check and read aloud accommodations and scribe.

Language problems were obvious in K, when I first asked for an IEP.  DS did not get it until 3rd grade.

We finally pulled DS and sent him to private SN school, where he learned to write.

In retrospect, I wish we had just paid for private tutoring -- handwriting and a tutor who specialized in OG/Wilson reading methods which really helped with spelling and someone who could explicitly teach the organization of writing.  There is something acquiring these skills early -- kids can become more fluent.  IME, if you wait until they are older, the skill can still be acquired, but it requires more effort and even when learned the effort is still required, i.e. the skill doesn't necessarily develop to the stage where a student can do it fluently or automatically without thinking.  [/quote]

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