Horrible Handwriting 11 yr old HELP! | ADHD Information

I know I am posting quite a few questions, but since I am new here I thought I would get it all out in the open.  My 11 year old boy has horrible handwriting.  We have tried everything, tutors, worksheets, time outs.  Nothing helps.  He is on 60 mg of Metadate cd and he just cant write well at all.  We can't read it, his teachers can't read it.  He does not stop to put spaces or punctuation in and we are at our wits end.  Both husband and I are great at writing and are well educated.  We just don't know what to do anymore.  Any suggestions or do  you have the same problem and what do you tell the teachers?  They don't give the class alot of time in JR High to take notes and so he also is writing very fast at school.  But at home he can write slower and it still does not help.  Thank you and have a peaceful day. Do you feel it's a fine motor issue?  If so, an occupational therapist can help.  If he's rushing through work due to impulsivity, then you should talk to the doctor who is managing his ADHD meds.Definitely - get the school to do OT. My son had a huge improvement when
the specialist got involved.

Good luck!He needs an occupational therapy evaluation to see if it's physical.Can he type? Dysgraphia is a common disability associated with ADHD. Does he have a 504 or IEP at school? Helping with writing should be a goal in an IEP or he can have computer accommodations written in a 504 so he can be allowed to type notes, etc.

My 8 year old son is horrible at writing as well. He just doesn't want to take the time to do it. I think he mind is going so fast that he is quickly frustrated with how slow it takes him to write it down on paper.

My sensory and adhd son had an OT, it was part of his IEP - she worked with helping his penmanship, spacing letters, letter forming, etc - basically she worked with penmanship as well as sensory over load - over stimulated and stuggling with self regulation. She was wonderful. And it helped.

DS is now 13 and finds that mechanical pencils help him best, as well as typing.

We also did this through our insurance privately. we paid copayments.

Hang in there, this stuff breaks my heart.

Yep - got that here too!  His writing at 9 is worse than his not yet 6 y.o. sister.  OT is on his IEP and he gets some services, but for him it's more about the combination of organizing his thoughts, remembering spelling and letter/word formation.  He just plain can't put it all together yet.  Ultimately the keyboard will be his saviour, but we aren't there yet.

Hang in and know you aren't alone!

That sounds like my 10 year old. He has a diagnosis of dysgraphia (and ADHD and mild generalized anxiety disorder) since early 2nd grade. He is now in 5th. He has an IEP. His handwriting is HORRIBLE, and we've tried all sorts of things. They really couldn't decide if his poor handwriting was due to the ADHD, fine motor skill issues, or the dysgraphia/learning disability in writing. He never put spaces between words and it was almost impossible to read. We tried different things to use as "spacers" (like a pencil between words, a strip of sticky note between words, etc. The school assigned an OT to him too. Nothing worked. Finally at last year's IEP meeting, they had done a bunch of tests on him and said they think his handwriting issues are more from his ADHD--that he wants to get things out so quickly before he forgets, that any handwriting care goes out the window. Apparently isolated words/letters are formed fine. He is learning to type now (we got extra typing time put into his IEP) and he has a scribe for essay questions on tests. If they give him an essay question, he can answer it verbally correctly, but if he had to write it down, it wouldn't translate onto paper. He is allowed to type all his homework, which helps tremendously! I'd see if you could get your child an eval. We took ours to an educational psychologist independent of the school for an impartial assessment, and the school waived their right to their own eval because the educational psychologist we took him to had a great reputation. Good luck!