What to Do When Your Child With ADHD Struggles with Handwriting.

 Dysgraphia, handwriting difficulty, is a very common complication of ADHD.  Handwriting requires not only fine motor strength and coordination, but also attention to detail, sequencing of writing steps, planning, and memory of letter shapes and formation steps.  It is also a skill which is essential for academic progress.  So, what to do when your child with ADHD struggles with handwriting?

Prevent Handwriting Hatred

Use other activities to promote fine motor coordination and strength.     Any activity that uses a lot of squeezing and finger work is a candidate here:  scissors activities, play dough (not with toys), silly putty, etc.

Work on handwriting during handwriting assignments only.  When your child is working on other subjects, such as spelling or social studies, keep comments about their handwriting to yourself.  You may wish to allow the use of adaptive methods such as keyboarding or dictation during non-handwriting subjects.   Having skeleton/fill-in-the-blank notes can help a child learn notetaking skills while not being overly burdened by their handwriting.  Alternatively, allowing the child to use someone else's notes, a scribe, a small tape recorder, or even a camera (usually best for short, time limited notes like assignments, not lectures) can be helpful.

If you are home schooling or remediating handwriting at home, you may wish to use a structured handwriting curriculum such as Handwriting Without Tears.  Keeping handwriting to itself allows the child to achieve confidence in other subjects instead of allowing all subjects to be infected by the frustration of not being able to write well. 

Encourage Proper Grip

If your child complains of hand pain, or seems to have a death grip on their pencil, their grip may be incorrect.  Correcting a poor grip may be as easy as using a gripper, or using a larger writing implement (such as a large marker, or kindergarten pencil).  However, if the grip isn't remedied by these strategies, consider having an occupational therapist intervene.

Other methods for encouraging a proper grip include having your child write with stubs of broken crayons or small bits of chalk (on a slate).

Make Writing Physically Easier

Sometimes its easy to forget that things like chair height (and foot placement), a good supportive surface (not a soft pile of papers or a thick blotter),  and a smooth surface (like dry erase markers on white board instead of pencil on grey dollar store paper) can make a world of difference for making writing physically easier.

Memory aids

Children with ADHD often struggle with writing because a deficit in working memory makes it difficult to recall how to form letters or when to put in spaces.

Some methods to help with memory problems include posting a letter strip on the child's desk or work area, having the child write in a sensory way (such as with clay letters, with fingers in a sand/salt/shaving cream/pudding tray, with fingers on sand paper or bumpy foam letters, or using a spacer (fingers or a decorated craft stick) for spacing between words.

Medication

Many teachers notice an immediate improvement in handwriting when effective medication is started, which testifies to the direct impact ADHD has on the handwriting process.  While medication isn't the best fit for every patient, if a child is struggling with a key academic skill like handwriting, it probably should be a consideration.

Vision Therapy

Some patients with ADHD have difficulty with visual tracking.  They cannot focus on, or see letters correctly without vision therapy, which is typically provided by a specialized optometrist.  These children uniformly also have difficulty with reading. Since they cannot see the letters correctly to identify them, they also can have difficulty writing.

Your child with ADHD will likely not need to use all the strategies listed above.  The best approach is to keep trying until one or more of them work.

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