health sectionhealth section
Dysgraphia is a neurological disorder that manifests itself in handwriting disabilities, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Children with this learning disorder write in such a way that letters can be oversized, incorrect, outside the lines and have spacing issues. Holding writing instruments in an awkward manner and having trouble transferring thoughts to paper are also signs of the disorder. While this disorder is not curable, interventions can help a sufferer deal with its effects and help him function in the real world.
Although agraphia and dysgraphia both affect the ability of an individual to write, their causes and effects are very different from one another. The treatment for agraphia and dysgraphia also differ.
The learning disability dysgraphia is characterized by a difficulty expressing yourself in writing. This neurological disorder typically appears when children begin learning to write, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Students with dysgraphia, a learning disability that hampers written expression, often struggle with spelling because they write letters out of order, compose words backwards, leave out sections of words, or omit punctuation.
The "National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke" define dysgraphia as " . . . a neurological disorder characterized by writing disabilities. Specifically, the disorder causes a person's writing to be distorted or incorrect." The term dysgraphia is derived from the Greek words "dys" meaning difficulty and "graphein" meaning to write. The disorder is characterized by symptoms such as irregular letter shapes and sizes, general illegibility, mixing of upper and lowercase letters and a struggle to use writing as a communication tool.
Dysgraphia is a neurological handwriting disability. Sufferers of dysgraphia have difficulty in writing words properly; they process words that are seen and heard in an altered way. This condition causes them to write words with letters in incorrect order, writing the words backwards--as is the case for dyslexics--and in most cases have illegible handwriting. There are different tests in various areas that result in a diagnosis of dygraphia. These areas include intelligence testing, working memory, writing and spelling skills, phonological awareness tests and retrieval fluency measures.
You may have heard of dyslexia, but you probably don't know about dysgraphia---a little-known writing disability. What is known about the history of dysgraphia is that this term, which goes back nearly seven decades, refers to a disorder where children and adults alike have problems writing---everything from size of letters to spacing between letters and spelling.
Dysgraphia is a learning disability that affects your ability to write. It is common for dysgraphia to be diagnosed during childhood when its symptoms are first noticeable.
Dysgraphia is to writing what dyslexia is to reading. Both of these disabilities occur among students, but only one, dyslexia, is commonly recognized and diagnosed.
