Brief Overview of Student
The subject of this report is Eric, a 5th grade student in a suburban elementary school. Eric is in a general education classroom, however he exhibits extremely poor-handwriting, which has negatively impacted his academic performance in school, and his ability to keep up with his classmates on assignments. Last year, his teacher made a recommendation for tested for a learning disability, and he was diagnosed with dysgraphia, mixed-type. This report will give an overview of dysgraphia, both developmental and acquired, and then offer specific recommendations for services and interventions for Eric, including four possible lessons that target improving fine motor skills and handwriting skills of a student like Eric.
Overview of Dysgraphia
Dysgraphia is the difficulty with writing and/or drawing (Kriveloff, slide 12). There are two main types of dygraphia, developmental dysgraphia and acquired dysgraphia. “Acquired dysgraphia refers to impaired writing ability following brain damage.” (Schmalzl & Nickels, 2006, p. 2). Acquired dysgraphia occurs more often in adults whereas children deal with developmental dysgraphia. Developmental dysgraphia affects a student’s ability to read and spell. (Kohnen, Nickels, Brunsdon, & Coltheart, 2008, p. 157). Without being fully able to read and spell, these students experience difficulty in school because they lack the ability to put their own thoughts down into written form, which results in these students not performing as well in school because many of their assignments are written. (Crouch & Jakubecy, 2007, p. 1). Developmental dysgraphia is a serious learning disability which needs to be acknowledged and addressed in students in order to help students perform positively in the class.
Studies have been conducted to try to determine the cause of dysgraphia in children. Some studies have established that “poor writers possess either an inherently noisy neuromotor system or exhibit...