I
am writing this paper because I have dysgraphia and it is something I want to
know more about even though I have it I still don’t understand why I have it
this is a question I hope to answer along with these. I want to find out how
dysgraphia works, what causes dysgraphia, what others think dysgraphia is, and
how to accommodate people with dysgraphia.
I also want to find out how my experience with dysgraphia differs from
others and how they are similar.
Dysgraphia is not very well known
throughout the world the fact that no ones quite sure how many people have it
is proof to this fact “8-15% of students are said to have dysgraphia” (5) it
has a difference of 7% witch is fairly large compared to other things this is
because some people who have other learning disabilities also have dysgraphia
witch makes it hard to diagnose I who have a mom that diagnoses people for a
living was diagnosed by her friend so it also not always something someone
automatically goes to I knew something was wrong but she couldn’t see it.
People with dysgraphia also have a hard time writing papers because they cant
get there ideas in order if you give them an outline of what you want they will
follow it to a t because otherwise they don’t know what to do “reviewed
research on the characteristics of unskilled writers and concluded that they
tend to spend little or no time planning before starting to write, often do not
present ideas in a logical order, use very simple sentence structures (or
conversely, write long and rambling sentences with repetitive use of
conjunctions), produce very little material in the available time, and are
reluctant to review and revise their work”(5) This also limits how accommodations
work for them because you can let them use a computer to write but that only
solves part of the problem. There are various problems that each individual can
have when they have dysgraphia they can have all of or only a few of these Some
people have trouble with spelling and grammar others have more difficulty with
planning papers and actually writing them and others have a hard time getting
the papers started but once they get going its easier I tend to have a hard
time getting started if I don’t have something like a rubric to go off of as
well as trouble with spelling and grammer.
There are
some accommodations that work for some people but not others so you have to
find what works for that specific person for example “If your child is bringing
home grammar exercises that require her to identify parts of speech (nouns,
verbs, adjectives) or sentence parts (subjects, predicates, etc.), try using
multicolored markers to help her. Give her models to follow like lists of nouns
in red, verbs in blue, and so forth. Then ask her to highlight the words in the
exercise with the appropriate color. Use squares of multicolored paper with
nouns printed on one color, verbs on another, and adjectives on a third. Let
your child make a variety of sentences by arranging and rearranging the words.
See if you can find a good computer game that will provide plenty of practice.”(1)
This may work for some people but for me it wouldn’t help at all I still wouldn’t
understand the difference between the verbs nouns and various other grammar
structures I also wouldn’t be able to pick them out on my own I would need
almost constant help to do it.
There are different types of
spelling errors that various people with dysgraphia make. One kind of error is
with written spelling “Patients who were unable to have a mental image of the
shape of letters and made, in written spelling, case mixing errors or letter
substitution errors between letters having a similar shape”(3) written spelling
error happen when someone cant remember how to write a certain letter or switch
two letters that look similar. Typing spelling errors are very similar to
written spelling errors except that sometimes people hit the wrong key as well
as spelling things wrong. Oral spelling errors tend to be substations and
switching letters around.
People often don’t under stand that
a learning disability is something you’re born with “there reading and writing
difficulties are often attributed to laziness, inattention, or emotional
maladjustment.”(4) I have had many teachers call me lazy and say I don’t try
hard enough so why should they try to accommodate this laziness of mine. “Dysgraphia is one of the more hidden learning
disabilities. It is not readily visible at first glance. In fact, often people
who have dysgraphia may be great readers and really smart in a lot of ways, so
it is confusing why they seem to struggle so much with spelling, handwriting,
and the rules of grammar.”(2) it
made things harder on me because I was trying my hardest and she refused to
help me and I’m not the only one dysgraphia is not well known so the people
that it affects have a hard time getting others to work with them because often
people will ether say its not a real learning disability or they will say that
the kid doesn’t really have it so they don’t have to help them.
Dysgraphia is something that not
much is known about but new things are coming out everyday and more and more
people find out everyday. My goal in this essay was to answer some questions
and I don’t think I found the answers to all of them I don’t know if the
answers are out there yet but I hope to keep looking but I did find some things
I wasn’t expecting to find like certain accommodations I had never thought of
or that I don’t think will work. As well as answers to personal questions I
have like what’s part of my learning disability and what’s part of me I
sometimes have a hard time drawing the line but this helped it become clearer.
All in all I’m glad I wrote this paper because it helped me learn more about
something I have to handle everyday.
Works
Cited
(1) Adelizzi, Jane Utley, and Diane B.
Goss. Parenting Children with Learning Disabilities. Westport: Bergin
& Garvey, 2001. Print.
(2) Cardon, Teresa Amber. Personal
interview. 17 Feb. 2014.
(3) De Partz, Marie-Pierre, Aliette
Lochy, and Agnesa Pillon. “Multiple levels of letter representation in written
spelling: Evidence from a single case of dysgraphia with multiple deficits.” Behavioural
Neurology 16.2/3 (2005): 119-41. Ebscohost. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
(4) T. T. S. Ingram and Mrs. A. W. MasonThe
British Medical Journal , Vol. 2, No. 5459 (Aug. 21, 1965) , pp. 463-465
(5)
Westwood, Peter S. Learning and Learning Difficulties : A Handbook for
Teachers. Camberwell: ACER, 2004. Print.