While analyzing your child’s handwriting is by no means a scientific procedure for determining a learning disorder, there are clues that may help parents recognize a need for professional evaluation. Here are a few things to check for.
1. Messy handwriting: Don’t assume your child is just being lazy. For younger kids, an inability to form letters correctly may be more about “motor dysgraphia,” or slow-developing motor skills. For school-age children and teens, writing illegibly may be a sign of dysgraphia (“problems with writing”), which is more about a lack of ability than effort – often due to weak cognitive skills like visual processing.
2. Misspelled words: Sometimes referred to as “dyslexic dysgraphia,” misspelling words when writing is often a sign that certain brain skills like phonemic awareness are weak. One quick way to evaluate the problem is to ask your child to copy written work from another sheet of paper. If the copied work has few or no mistakes, the issue may be less about poor handwriting and more about weak reading and spelling skills.
3. Extra, reversed or omitted letters; heavy pressure: A 2007 study found that students with attention deficits (like ADHD) were more likely to have dysgraphia. In addition to these graphemic buffer errors, writers with ADHD tended to write faster and exert “abnormally high levels of pen pressure.”
If this at-home evaluation brings up any concerns, consider having your child’s learning skills tested. Nationally standardized assessment tools like the Woodcock Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities, (WJ III-COG) and the Woodcock Johnson Tests of Achievement, (WJ III-ACH) measure cognitive skills and academic abilities. Once the weak cognitive skills – like attention, visual processing or phonemic awareness – are evaluated, a personalized brain training program can be created to strengthen those skills and make learning easier for ALL areas of academics – not just handwriting.
There are many factors to consider when reviewing a child’s handwriting: age (motor skills), gender (girls tend to write more clearly), size of hands (to hold a pen or pencil), and even personality (a “people-pleaser” might try harder to impress a parent or teacher). And while handwriting skills will improve over time for some, those who struggle due to weak brain skills will only excel when the cause of their dysgraphia is treated.
If you suspect your child’s handwriting is a sign of weak learning skills – like attention, visual processing or phonemic awareness – consider having his cognitive skills tested. Remember, poor handwriting usually isn’t the problem, it’s the symptom.
