Hand writing in ds14 - left hand

[AnthemLights]

It seems like I am asking a lot of questions lately.  It's the end of the school year and I am evaluating where we are with stuff which leads to questions.

 

Please bear with me.   :tongue_smilie:

 

So, my ds14 is left-handed and I have always worried about his handwriting.  His cursive (when he is trying) is actually rather beautiful.  But it is slow and labored and most of the time he doesn't try and then it's still kind of slow and not very pretty.  It's legible, but that's about all you can say for it.   :sad:

 

He complains that he can't write smoothly and sort of hitches his hand along.  He also writes kind of with a hook, holding his hand above the line he is writing on, rather than below.  I have tried to correct him on this, but he says it only makes things worse and slows him down even more.

 

He is right-handed on some stuff.  I wonder if it would be worth it to try to get him to retrain himself writing with his right hand?  OR does that sound crazy.

 

I know I should have addressed this a lot earlier because I fear that it might be too late to do anything about it at this point.  

 

 

[Tiramisu]

I actually know several families who have done the hand switch in older kids. One family did it with a high school junior or senior who went on to major in art. But in every case it was right to left.

 

Now my oldest is a lefty and writes the way you describe. I just thought it was a lefty thing, and my efforts to help weren't effective. Then, when we started getting evals, it became clear that the problem was deeper. The np told me if she had been younger, she would have made a case for developmental coordination disorder and had her in OT. Because of her age, we got a report recommending extra time and a note taker instead. In college, she first got an extra set of notes and then the college transitioned to livescribe pens.

 

If I could do things over, I would have had evals earlier with an np who could really gauge how the writing difficulty was impacting her performance. And then I would have taken her to OT.

 

She's a musician and it affects her playing somewhat, too. She can do it, but she has to work harder.

 

In any case, with some minor accommodations, she's done well. As of today, she's a college senior! I can't believe!

 

Don't stew on this. Get help from specialists who can objectively evaluate the problem. Don't go cluelessly into high school like I did.

[Tiramisu]

dp

Edited May 6, 2016 by Tiramisu

[wapiti]

What would the purpose of switching be?  Just for better (faster/neater) handwriting, or something therapeutic?  I agree with Tiramisu that looking at root problems would be the way to go.  I think it's great that his cursive is nice even though it's slow and labored.  I can't imagine I'd go through the trouble of trying to switch unless there was therapeutic value beyond faster handwriting.

 

FWIW, for all practical purposes, my ds13s and dd15 type most things, as do all their fellow students (all students have devices).  They attend school without accommodations.  Two of the three are lefties, one with significant issues.  We will be retesting ds13 with the ed psych at some point soon to see whether or not accommodations may be available for SAT/ACT - I am guessing he won't be quite slow enough even though I'm certain he'd find extra time helpful.  We feel fortunate that technology has evolved just in time.

[Tanaqui]

When I was a child, everything I couldn't do that could possibly be passed off as lefthandedness *was*. Poor handwriting? Left-handed. Couldn't tie my shoes? Hard to teach a lefty. Couldn't reliably start a zipper or button my own shirt? Gosh, lefties can be so uncoordinated! Inability to maneuver my fork to my food and then to my mouth without spilling? Lefthanded! That was also why I couldn't comb my hair, and couldn't get dressed without getting lost in my own clothes, and had huge difficulty telling left from right.

 

And this is all part of a greater pattern - I had to have speech therapy because of "braces", for example.

 

The real answer for most of these, probably all of these, is "autism" and "general poor motor skills". (Well, the handwriting is probably a combination of factors that includes autism, poor fine motor skills, lefthandedness, and extremely poor instruction, but the point is it's not lefthandedness alone.)

 

After I was an adult, I learned that this experience was normal with parents who either don't have a term for their kid's problems, or don't want to really talk about it with their kid.

 

Which brings us to your son. His handwriting problems sound probably more severe than can just be explained away by writing with is left hand. Switching hands is unlikely to give you the results you want. I strongly agree with those who say you should get him a full evaluation, and now. When he goes to college, he may need a formal diagnosis for accommodations such as the right to use a keyboard instead of writing out tests and the like.

 

(Note: Despite my story, I don't think the answer is "autism" when it comes to your son. I just thought a personal anecdote would make the point, and that's mine.)

[Tiramisu]

The people I know who have done the switch do it as part of neurodevelopmental therapy, to eliminate cross-dominance, which they believe can contribute to learning issues, I think. Maybe part of it is that they think that more people would be lefties if that natural development had been left alone.

 

They also try to strengthen dominance with eyes and ears, which, to me, don't seem as if they would be vulnerable to well-intentioned coercion by parents and teachers early in life as hand dominance.

[AnthemLights]

Thanks everyone for your input.  Wapiti- I always thought that lefties have a much harder time in this world, especially when it comes to writing.  Awkward looking, smudged writing, can't see what was just written.  So, I was thinking that if I was going to be doing some major intervention to retrain how he writes with his left hand, maybe I might as well switch?

 

 

 

 

[geodob]

Rather than approaching it as a 'switch'? You could have him 'explore' writing with his right hand?

Where the key thing, is to look at whether he quite quickly develops a fluent and automatic writing of letters/ words?

 

While most people can develop the ability to write with their 'other hand'.

This is still directed from their dominant hand. But each hand operates in a 'mirror process' with each other.

But what you could simply do, is have him explore writing with his right hand, and observe how it develops?

[wapiti]

Wapiti- I always thought that lefties have a much harder time in this world, especially when it comes to writing.  Awkward looking, smudged writing, can't see what was just written.  So, I was thinking that if I was going to be doing some major intervention to retrain how he writes with his left hand, maybe I might as well switch?

 

FWIW, I can't see putting him through switching just because lefties have a harder time in the world with writing.  (Sorry, it just sounds silly to me - my brother is a lefty and would remark about trying to write on right-handed desks at college, but not a reason to switch!  Being a lefty with messy handwriting hasn't hurt him one bit; he's extremely successful.)  Of my twins, the lefty's handwriting is nicer than the righty's; the lefty won't have the college desk issue though because he will primarily be using a laptop.

 

OTOH, if it were part of OT to address a root problem, that would be different.  And of course as geodob suggests, there's nothing wrong with exploring, experimenting, trying it out - that can even be fun. (Sometimes I play with writing with my left hand but honestly it's just as messy either way!)  Requiring him to switch would seem cruel at any point but especially at this late age - e.g. I remember my mom telling stories of being forced back in the dark ages.  In other words, go ahead and have him play around with right-handed writing, see what happens, but ultimately I would leave it to his choice rather than yours.

Edited May 7, 2016 by wapiti

[AnthemLights]

Wapiti, the only reason I was wondering about the switch was it seems that I either just let it go or else try some major intervention.  And if I go the intervention route, I thought....maybe....since we would basically have to start over from ground zero, maybe it would be easier to learn how to write with the right hand than relearn with the left.  I certainly don't want to be mean or cruel about it.  I have heard and read about the sometimes forceful measures taken to discourage left-handedness, and I definitely don't want to go there.   :eek:  

 

I have never done any testing with him for any reason, mostly because he is an ideal student in every way. He is also a great athlete and works with his dad in construction, handling all sorts of tools with dexterity.  So, I guess I am seeing the writing more as a failure on my part.  Maybe there are techniques or methods or whatever that I should have taught him way back when and I didn't and now I am feeling guilty 'cuz it's my fault.   :(

 

Maybe I am making too much out of it.  My husband doesn't have the neatest handwriting and it hasn't hurt him any in life either.   :001_smile:

 

We started with typing.  I just purchased TTRS for his younger brother who is dyslexic and both of them are going to work on it through the summer and beyond.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AnthemLights]

OTOH, if it were part of OT to address a root problem, that would be different.  And of course as geodob suggests, there's nothing wrong with exploring, experimenting, trying it out - that can even be fun. (Sometimes I play with writing with my left hand but honestly it's just as messy either way!)  Requiring him to switch would seem cruel at any point but especially at this late age - e.g. I remember my mom telling stories of being forced back in the dark ages.  In other words, go ahead and have him play around with right-handed writing, see what happens, but ultimately I would leave it to his choice rather than yours.

 

:iagree:   Ok, that sounds very reasonable.

[AnthemLights]

Rather than approaching it as a 'switch'? You could have him 'explore' writing with his right hand?

Where the key thing, is to look at whether he quite quickly develops a fluent and automatic writing of letters/ words?

 

While most people can develop the ability to write with their 'other hand'.

This is still directed from their dominant hand. But each hand operates in a 'mirror process' with each other.

But what you could simply do, is have him explore writing with his right hand, and observe how it develops?

Thanks geo.  The bolded - I am going to try this.  

[wapiti]

Oh I'd never think of bad handwriting as the teacher's fault!  IMO if you feel certain there are no other academic difficulties (*especially with regard to speed of filling in bubbles on a standardized test*), at this age I would just go with typing.  For high school in my area, all students use devices and accordingly are typing to a large degree.

 

Have fun with the opposite-hand writing and if anything interesting happens, please update :)

 

Is your dyslexic also a lefty?  My lefties are not dyslexic, at least not by any traditional definition (no issues with phonemic stuff), though they both had their share of sensory challenges in the younger years as well as their share of visual-spatial strengths.

[AnthemLights]

No my dyslexic isn't left-handed, but he has all the handwriting difficulties usually associated with dyslexia.  It's just so incredibly hard for him to write which is why we are transitioning to typing and speech-to-text with him.

 

Thanks for the help and encouragement.  I will update if there is cause.   :001_smile:

[Sugarfoot]

I would explore the idea of switching with him if I were you. I've read some research that suggests those who write with their left hand but "crook" over the top of the paper actually share the same "brain dominance" as right-handers. "True" left-handers don't crook. That's the theory, at least, and they'd done some pretty in depth studies to back it up. 

 

I'm left-handed, as are 2 of my 4 kids. None of us "crook." I actually have some of the prettiest hand-writing of anyone I know--print or cursive. It doesn't slant to the right the way a right-hander's does though; it's more vertical. I can't slant no matter what!

 

Both of my boys are dyslexic. One is left-handed, one right-handed. Their hand-writing struggles have been very similar. 

My girls are not dyslexic, again one left-handed, one right-handed. 

 

All 3 of us who are left-handed are very dominantly so. There isn't anything at all that any of us prefer to do right-handed.

 

HTH!