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Do fine motor activities at home. Make it fun.
Using tweezers, take one cotton ball out of the cotton jar and put it in the empty jar repeat; get out the colored paper and draw some shapes for your child to cut out; get a pencil gripper or have your child use a golf pencil; get some stickers to peel and place; String Cheerios ; rip or crumble paper; place coins in a piggy bank ; attach clothespins to board book; threading and lacing
We do these activities w kids who struggle w fine motor
Also if they have an official diagnosis the school should have ARD/504 plans in place to help your child
Occupational Therapy really helped my daughter for both dysgraphia and her ADHD related executive function troubles. She started in middle school. In therapy, she learned to write in cursive which is easier on her hands and requires less picking up the pencil/pen off the paper. She also sampled a few graphic organizers and ways to jump start her written assignments till she found some that helped. They triggered different parts of her brain when she had writer’s block and helped her plan out her thoughts.
The best part for her was creating a dopamine menu with the therapist of sensations she liked and small environment changes that made her more comfortable. She could go to these when she felt overwhelmed or didn’t feel motivated. She learned that she liked those cold ice packs with the gel beads, so we keep one in the freezer as a fidget plus a few other things like fat mechanical pencils, and LOTS of colorful highlighters.
The right ADHD & anxiety medication made a big improvement. I wanted to wait until she was old enough to describe how she experienced the difference in medication types. It’s still a struggle as a HS student, but she’s come a long way. Our last hurdle is her confidently advocating for herself with her teachers and counselors so that her 504 accommodations are actually used and stay helpful. We adjust them frequently because every teacher/subject/school year is different.
Hang in there, you’ve got this!
Literally had the same experience with our 7 yo this year. Please PM me if you want to chat. Lots of experience with this.
My oldest who is 23 has adhd and dysgraphia, we did not find this out until he was probably 10 but the school had a lot of things they put in place for the dysgraphia part. Organizational skills were always a challenge no matter what. As he got into high school they did less writing and more on computer which they allowed him to taking his writing tests also on computer. He had extra time to do any handwritten assignments. He was never officially medicated or a psychologist diagnosed for ADHD but we knew he had it. He did have to learn to write slower which helped with being able to read the handwriting he was also left handed which was a whole mess with dysgraphia.
I have dysgraphia. I’m 32 and a lawyer. Best thing for me was accommodations to use a laptop in class. I actually got to use one from high school all the way through law school. I type amazingly but can’t hand write or other fine motor things to save my life.
My darling was diagnosed with ADHD and a learning disability at 7 years of age. She is now 28 years old and doing well. DM if you want to chat.
Her main issue was dyslexia but she also had challenges with verbal expression, math and writing. All communication modes. And she had short term memory issues.
Most important points..
1. My daughter needed a sense of control. I started including her in the annual IEP review meetings when she was 8 years old. And she was asked if she had any suggestions.
We watched or listen to many, many articles on how the brain worked. I found a simple, kid friendly book about brain functionality. We talked about the frontal lobe not coming online until 17 to 19 years of age. So she will get more help with impulse control then.
2. Her emotions needed to constantly be acknowledged. She was doing hard hard work. She was retraining her brain.
3. She needed to understand the timeline and expectations. She was going to be on the struggle bus for years. And at some point, the skill will be good enough.
I compared her learning struggles to someone recovering from a stroke. She had an older relative who had a stroke. So she knew it took a long time of hard work in therapy to get better.
At 9 years of age, my daughter and I agreed that her handwriting and spelling was good enough. She was skilled at using Google and spellcheck for spelling. And I could read her hand writing.
This agreement meant that she could stop stressing about writing and spelling. And she could invest her energy on reading and math.
Find a good pediatric occupational therapist