Re: Fw: Recovering fine motor and handwriting

April 3, 2010

> BUT, his handwriting, fine motor and paper management skills remain

> atrocious.

Try B12, carnitine, and creatine.

Dana

April 3, 2010

There is a learning disability that can be comorbid with Autistic spectrum

Disorders, it's called dysgraphia. Since it's an LD I'm not sure if it can be

helped with biomed treatments. My 13 year old suffers from this big time.She

can't even read her own writing. Her typing is slow, but she does ok. He can get

an Alpha Smart word processor through the school system. His teachers can

download documents on it (although ours said they would and never did). It's

small and easy to use. You attach it to the printer and print anything out, or

the teacher sometimes just checks the screen. My son has a milder form of

disgraphia, but he has extremely weak muscle tone in his hands...tying his shoes

is a struggle but he can almost manage it.He outgrew velcro size shoes lst

year:( Darn

April 5, 2010

It's another therapy, but we just started vision therapy for my kids. It is a

series of exercises to target vision processing and hand-eye coordination in a

very specific way. It does seem that typing could be a way around this. Maybe

at his age he will need to decide for himself that this is a problem and then

help come up with the solution? BTW, it's exciting to hear about his progress!

-Sierra

>

> I am writing a general post and putting it out to the boards, searching for

answers. Perhaps someone out there has dealt successfully with this issue where

I have struggled.

>

> Mark is 15 and pretty much recovered. Actually, he just came home

> last night from a school trip to France for 12 days and did magnificently! He

didn't regress at all and while he was a bit tired from his travels, his eyes

were glowing and he was full of stories of his adventure.

>

> BUT, his handwriting, fine motor and paper management skills remain

> atrocious. He has come such a long way in this area but it really is not

> enough for higher level education. Mark begins high school next year (grade

> 10) and I worry that his lack of handwriting fluency is going to be his

> doom. At one point, his hands and wrists were extremely weak and frail

> along with the rest of his body. We have spent years in improving his tone.

> The body came in first and now his hands/wrists are nice and strong. I

thought

> that in achieving normal hand strength, his fluency would get better.... and

it did, a little, but not very much.

>

> Today, his gross motor is pretty good. He runs regularly, plays on the

> football team, wrestles, is currently rowing on crew, skiis (both snow and

water), kneeboards and is extremely

> active. This is quite a difference from the young boy who used to fall out

> of a chair, his body was so weak!

>

> Pretty much everything associated with his condition has been overcome. We

> have great speech, auditory processing is now good, good attention, memory and

the body is nice and

> strong. BUT those hands!

>

> For him, it is not just with handwriting. It took him until he was 12 in

> order to tie his shoes. He struggles with things like chopping veggies,

> folding laundry, opening the Glad garbage bag to place it into the bin

> (tactility issue on this one), inserting keys in locks to open doors. He

> will often write on his loose leaf paper upside down or insert it into his

> binder or duo tang backwards or upside down. His handwriting is sloppy and

> pretty much illegible. I don't know how his teachers read it! His writing

> is slow and laborious. He brings home ZERO notes from class and writes

> notes from his textbook onto the computer each night rather then take notes

> from the teacher. He does have a laptop to take to class but refuses to do

> so anymore finding it cumbersome and difficult to manage along with the

> myriad of textbooks he has to carry around.

>

> Mark is an excellent reader, always has been and his visual memory is quite

> acute. He tested out at the college level of decoding and reading

> comprehension when languishing in special ed in grade 6! So.... I know he

> isn't having issues with dyslexia but does have problems sometimes with

> visual scanning for objects, ie. an object can be right in front of him and

> he won't see it, he has hyper-peripheral vision which is probably the 'root'

> cause of all of this.... or is it visual motor? I just don't know anymore!

>

> I have done every handwriting program out there to no avail. The best,

> really, was Handwriting Without Tears and we did get some improvement with

> that program along with Form Drawing by Waldoff. We had repeated the HWT

> program a few times before Mark refused to do it anymore. He is DONE, DONE,

> DONE with therapy and just wants to live a regular life now. And he is

> doing this but..... I recognize that his lack of handwriting fluency is

> about to catch up with him. Today, our therapy now consists in the form of

> 'chores' or within the realm of organized sport. While he struggles with

> it, I make sure that he participates in cooking dinner, folding laundry,

> shoveling the walk, taking out the garbage, making his bed, etc.

>

> I know that for him, it is a visual motor issue but it seems to be more

> concentrated with small items or small movements of the hands and fingers.

>

> I feel as though I have exhausted the 'list' of things to do for fine motor,

> visual motor and handwriting. I have heard that fencing helps with fine

> motor control and know of a club that he could possibly join. Does anyone out

there have

> any suggestions of other things we could possibly try within your arsenal of

> experience that I may have overlooked?

>

> Looking for therapy and/or biomedical suggestions here....

>

> We are still chelating and 'hoping' that the handwriting will improve but

while everything else has gotten better with chelation, alas, the hands remain a

big problem. It's our last holdout and we won't be DONE with this dreadful

condition until I have recovered his hands completely! I once promised Mark

that I would get 'everything' back for him that was once lost. I am trying very

hard to keep this promise but am getting frustrated in this area....

>

> Does ANYONE out there have an older child who conquered handwriting and fine

> motor skills later in life? If so, I am ALL ears!!!

>

> Looking for suggestions,

>

> Janice

> Mother of Mark, severe global dyspraxia/apraxia/dysarthria/CAPD, now '90%'

> recovered

>

April 6, 2010

There was a good article in the New York Times recently about vision therapy.

Here is the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/magazine/14vision-t.html

> >

> > I am writing a general post and putting it out to the boards, searching for

answers. Perhaps someone out there has dealt successfully with this issue where

I have struggled.

> >

> > Mark is 15 and pretty much recovered. Actually, he just came home

> > last night from a school trip to France for 12 days and did magnificently!

He didn't regress at all and while he was a bit tired from his travels, his eyes

were glowing and he was full of stories of his adventure.

> >

> > BUT, his handwriting, fine motor and paper management skills remain

> > atrocious. He has come such a long way in this area but it really is not

> > enough for higher level education. Mark begins high school next year (grade

> > 10) and I worry that his lack of handwriting fluency is going to be his

> > doom. At one point, his hands and wrists were extremely weak and frail

> > along with the rest of his body. We have spent years in improving his tone.

> > The body came in first and now his hands/wrists are nice and strong. I

thought

> > that in achieving normal hand strength, his fluency would get better.... and

it did, a little, but not very much.

> >

> > Today, his gross motor is pretty good. He runs regularly, plays on the

> > football team, wrestles, is currently rowing on crew, skiis (both snow and

water), kneeboards and is extremely

> > active. This is quite a difference from the young boy who used to fall out

> > of a chair, his body was so weak!

> >

> > Pretty much everything associated with his condition has been overcome. We

> > have great speech, auditory processing is now good, good attention, memory

and the body is nice and

> > strong. BUT those hands!

> >

> > For him, it is not just with handwriting. It took him until he was 12 in

> > order to tie his shoes. He struggles with things like chopping veggies,

> > folding laundry, opening the Glad garbage bag to place it into the bin

> > (tactility issue on this one), inserting keys in locks to open doors. He

> > will often write on his loose leaf paper upside down or insert it into his

> > binder or duo tang backwards or upside down. His handwriting is sloppy and

> > pretty much illegible. I don't know how his teachers read it! His writing

> > is slow and laborious. He brings home ZERO notes from class and writes

> > notes from his textbook onto the computer each night rather then take notes

> > from the teacher. He does have a laptop to take to class but refuses to do

> > so anymore finding it cumbersome and difficult to manage along with the

> > myriad of textbooks he has to carry around.

> >

> > Mark is an excellent reader, always has been and his visual memory is quite

> > acute. He tested out at the college level of decoding and reading

> > comprehension when languishing in special ed in grade 6! So.... I know he

> > isn't having issues with dyslexia but does have problems sometimes with

> > visual scanning for objects, ie. an object can be right in front of him and

> > he won't see it, he has hyper-peripheral vision which is probably the 'root'

> > cause of all of this.... or is it visual motor? I just don't know anymore!

> >

> > I have done every handwriting program out there to no avail. The best,

> > really, was Handwriting Without Tears and we did get some improvement with

> > that program along with Form Drawing by Waldoff. We had repeated the HWT

> > program a few times before Mark refused to do it anymore. He is DONE, DONE,

> > DONE with therapy and just wants to live a regular life now. And he is

> > doing this but..... I recognize that his lack of handwriting fluency is

> > about to catch up with him. Today, our therapy now consists in the form of

> > 'chores' or within the realm of organized sport. While he struggles with

> > it, I make sure that he participates in cooking dinner, folding laundry,

> > shoveling the walk, taking out the garbage, making his bed, etc.

> >

> > I know that for him, it is a visual motor issue but it seems to be more

> > concentrated with small items or small movements of the hands and fingers.

> >

> > I feel as though I have exhausted the 'list' of things to do for fine motor,

> > visual motor and handwriting. I have heard that fencing helps with fine

> > motor control and know of a club that he could possibly join. Does anyone

out there have

> > any suggestions of other things we could possibly try within your arsenal of

> > experience that I may have overlooked?

> >

> > Looking for therapy and/or biomedical suggestions here....

> >

> > We are still chelating and 'hoping' that the handwriting will improve but

while everything else has gotten better with chelation, alas, the hands remain a

big problem. It's our last holdout and we won't be DONE with this dreadful

condition until I have recovered his hands completely! I once promised Mark

that I would get 'everything' back for him that was once lost. I am trying very

hard to keep this promise but am getting frustrated in this area....

> >

> > Does ANYONE out there have an older child who conquered handwriting and fine

> > motor skills later in life? If so, I am ALL ears!!!

> >

> > Looking for suggestions,

> >

> > Janice

> > Mother of Mark, severe global dyspraxia/apraxia/dysarthria/CAPD, now '90%'

> > recovered

> >

May 7, 2010

Handwriting Without Tears is the answer to your solution, trust me. Google it.