At its broadest definition,
Dysgraphia is a neurological condition and learning difference in which someone has difficulty with writing for their age level. This can range from issues with the physical act of writing to issues with translating thoughts into written words.
Symptoms. Kids with dysgraphia have unclear, irregular, or inconsistent handwriting, often with different slants, shapes, upper- and lower-case letters, and cursive and print styles. They also tend to write or copy things slowly.
It could indicate a neurological or muscular problem. “When someone's handwriting changes and becomes messy, sloppy, illegible or shaky, that might be a sign of an essential tremor, Parkinson's disease, writer's cramp or ataxia,” says neurologist Camilla Kilbane, MD.
ADHD is not a cause of dysgraphia. However, children with ADHD are at a higher than average risk of developing dysgraphia; they may have additional learning disabilities as well. Some evidence suggests that girls with ADHD may be more likely than boys to have both dysgraphia and dyslexia.
The five different types are as listed here; dyslexic dysgraphia, motor dysgraphia, spatial dysgraphia, phonological dysgraphia, and lexical dysgraphia.
Teachers report that the handwriting of both boys and girls with ADHD is immature, messy, and illegible. These findings may reflect poor motor skills and visual-motor integration, which are directly correlated with low handwriting legibility [2].
Problems with movement and co-ordination are the main symptoms of DCD. Children may have difficulty with: playground activities such as hopping, jumping, running, and catching or kicking a ball. They often avoid joining in because of their lack of co-ordination and may find physical education difficult.
Lack of creative ideas, writing anxiety, weak structural organization and dependence on L1 are also the major cause of learners' poor writing in English. Keywords: English writing skills, writing problems, elementary students.
The characteristics of dysgraphia include the following:
Poor spacing between letters and words. Letter and number reversals beyond early stages of writing. Awkward, inconsistent pencil grip. Heavy pressure and hand fatigue.
There are at least two stages in the act of writing: the linguistic stage and the motor-expressive-praxic stage. The linguistic stage involves the encoding of auditory and visual information into symbols for letters and written words.
Students with ADHD often have difficulties with writing, especially in terms of spelling. The most common issues are reversing or omitting letters, words, or phrases.
Hyperlexia is advanced and unexpected reading skills and abilities in children way beyond their chronological age. It is a fairly recently named condition (1967) although earlier descriptions of precocious reading do exist.
Many entrepreneurial authors (probably some of them with ADHD) are having great success with self-publishing these days.
Dysgraphia is a neurological disorder of written expression that impairs writing ability and fine motor skills. It is a learning disability that affects children and adults, and interferes with practically all aspects of the writing process, including spelling, legibility, word spacing and sizing, and expression.
While ADHD is a learning difficulty that often impacts on attention, behaviour or both, dyspraxia has to do with fine motor skills, language and planning abilities and is not always classed as a learning difficulty.
So although there are similarities, autism is primarily a social and communication disorder and dyspraxia is primarily a motor skills disorder. If your child has one of these conditions but you feel they also have other difficulties, you may think about further assessment.
Two of the commonly co-existing issues that people with ADHD have are developmental coordination disorder (DCD), commonly known as dyspraxia, and dyslexia. DCD is a condition that affects physical coordination.
The handwriting of outpatients with schizophrenia differ from controls' handwriting in more a frequent use of calligraphic letters, loops in ovals, lack of dot on “i” and “j,” more tremor and ataxic movement, more frequent sinusoidal baseline, and smaller lower zone.
Agraphia is an impairment or loss of a previous ability to write. Agraphia can occur in isolation, although it often occurs concurrently with other neurologic deficits such as alexia, apraxia, or hemispatial neglect.
Dysorthography is a specific disorder of spelling which accompanies dyslexia; the cognitive dysfunction underlying the two disorders is probably common to both. In dysorthography, the spelling of words is highly deficient, a direct consequence of the phonological disorder in dyslexic children.