Does your child struggle with writing? Do you suspect she has dysgraphia? There are several reasons why children fail to develop good writing skills, and it might take a little digging to figure out which one is giving your child fits when it comes to getting her thoughts down on paper.

Dysgraphia – “dys” means difficulty, and “graphia” means writing, so dysgraphia generally means “difficulty writing”. It’s a pretty broad definition for a multi-faceted problem. Tim was a first grader when we started working with him to develop writing skills. He’s a smart little boy with an above-average IQ. He attends a good public school and receives quality instruction. However, even though his reading skills were advancing at a good clip, he was not able to write legibly and hated all writing assignments. He struggled with a visual-spatial processing deficit that prevented him from noticing the spatial aspects of text. His letters were poorly formed and uneven in size. His spacing between letters and between words was not uniform – sometimes the spaces were huge, other times they did not exist. He wrote above and below the lines and in the margins. Worksheets were a nightmare for Tim! He tended to become overwhelmed at the sheer volume of graphic information to interpret and respond to. Melt-downs over homework were routine at his house. We worked with Tim to develop his brain’s ability to process spatial information. After about 40 hours of treatment, he was comfortable with the technical aspects of writing and was on his way to developing some good written language skills. His ability to efficiently complete his arithmetic calculations also improved as a result of this “brain training.”

So – if you’re wondering if your child might be suffering from dysgraphia, it’s a good idea to check out his visual-spatial processing. If it’s not developing as it should be, it’s likely impacting his ability to embrace the art of writing.

Read more about visual-spatial processing here.