Hey there, So, I've been told all my life that I'm a lazy writer, and it's true, I'm a pretty slow learner too. No matter how much I practice, my handwriting just doesn't improve. To make things worse, I've got depression, anxiety, and ADHD, which makes life pretty tough. I struggle with socializing and had to drop out of university because it was just too much to handle, and I didn't even know I had these conditions back then. Oh, and I also have dysgraphia, which doesn't help with the handwriting situation! To top it all off, my wrist starts hurting whenever I try to write. Any advice on how you guys coped with all this?

I 100 percent believed I had written Happy Birthday but for some reason my hand wrote Birth and my brain said day.

It made the moment cute and she loved it but as a child it made school just a little harder because I would leave out entire words or parts of words that I thought I had written. only to find out later that I didn’t pass or got a lower score because my hand didn’t actually write the complete word or sentence that my brain believed it had.

And how was I going to expect the teacher to change and X to a check mark because

“I meant to write that word”

“Well you should have double checked”

“I did double check…but I didn’t see that I didn’t write it”

How annoying that was.

Does anyone else have this problem?

When I was a kid and started school, my handwriting was very messy and illegible for a lot of people, as it is for many children, but my handwriting never improved. I believe starting the second grade, I began in-school occupational therapy to try and stabilize my handwriting. They tried everything from teaching me cursive, writing extra slow, tracing, etc. I had occupational therapy all the way up to middle school 7th grade. I went to three different elementary schools in two different states, plus middle and highschool without being diagnosed. At some point they just gave up and resigned me to "bad handwriting".

Queue this morning where I'm doing my morning TikTok scroll, and here comes a TikTok where a girl is making fun of her own handwriting. There are many comments informing her she may have dysgraphia, and TikTok has the blue keyword search, so naturally I clicked on it, and there were multiple videos where examples of dysgraphia looked EXACTLY like my handwriting from when I was a child.

My handwriting is bad still but not as bad as it used to be, but it just pissed me off wasting all that time, having so much insecurity regarding my handwriting, and thinking that something was wrong with me.

Well, at least now I know at 27. 💀

I have been concerned about my 10 year old (5th grade) writing for years (since 1st grade). He struggles with legibility, spelling, speed of writing and completing writing assignments. I’ve mentioned my concerns every year to his teachers, asking/providing suggestions for what seems to help, but each year, no one seems to really do anything to help.

This year, with middle school on the horizon, I decided to schedule an OT evaluation. The first visit was today and standardized tests were completed. I brought in a few writing samples/spelling quizzes for her to look at. While she still needs to complete her assessments, the one assessment that was completed—the VMI came back completely normal (even above average—percentile rank was in the 80% for both components).

I know that we need to wait until the testing is completed but can you still have dysgraphia with a normal VMI test? I’ve never felt as though his fine motor of visual motor skills were impaired—it just seems like getting thoughts down on paper and in an accurate way has been the issue.

Thanks in advance.

Not really a question but thank god for computers.

I can write well enough if I go very slow and it’s 1 or 2 lines but man do I hate taking notes.

Just venting I suppose.

Hi all for context I am talking about year 12 so the last year of my schooling

I am a smart person I sit above the level in everything except English but I have dysgraphia and the past year or so writting has caused me so much anxiety and pain that I have missed a notes, time on tests because I can’t think straight or I’m so anxious about having teachers take marks off because they cannot read my hand writing.

I was only just recently diagnosed with dysgraphia but despite this my school is only giving me extra time for exams however when I went to get diagnosed I was promised the ability to type my exams to eliminate the pain and anxiety.

Does anyone else get this accommodation?

What others could I ask for instead?

What would you do if you were me?

For context, i was the one talking about how i didn't struggle that much with handwriting but more with english itself, i'm paraphrasing because i can't confidently remember the contents of that post. I think i may have logged out of that account or deleted it.

Anyway.

I read my report for the first time ever a year or so ago, and i thought i was actually diagnosed with Dysgraphia in the terms of having terrible handwriting and the other symptoms that come with Dysgraphia. I was also diagnosed with another Math Learning Disability but that isn't the one i'm confused about.

But i see my other report and my diagnosis is written as written language, while on my IEP page online it says i'm diagnosed with a Learning Disability in writen expression. Although, i think i misinterpretted the original report because the tests done noted my ability to write and other written expression things, and not so much with pencil or handwriting tasks.

So i don't really know if i do have Dysgraphia or another learning disorder and i shouldn't have joined this sub. I'm very confused here, can someone please help me understand?

Sorry if this looks like a "Is This Dysgraphia?" posts but i'm confused here, i'm not looking for a diagnosis or anything, just some clarification if it's possible. Mods can delete if this does break that rule anyway, i might be able to figure it out myself.

I have a student with adhd, dyslexia, dysgraphia. He's in 5th grade now, and he has overcome and learned to cope with dyslexia, so he now reads on grade level. However, his writing still needs support. He’s such a sweet kid and very self-aware about the need to improve his writing. I even offered him a Chromebook with speech-to-text for producing his essay, but he declined, saying he wants to practice his writing.

I haven’t worked with him in writing before, only reading, but I’m going to take over his writing instruction now. Does anyone here have tips on what worked for their students? He’s a sporty, verbal, creative 5th-grade boy, and he's intrinsically motivated. I really want to help him, and I feel like this community could be a great resource.

Those of you who also have medicated ADHD, do your meds help with your handwriting?

Story behind my question: My 8 year old is medicated and doing well with school in general. But her handwriting is so different when she’s on her meds vs when they wear off. If she goes slow while on her meds her handwriting is actually pretty neat, but I can tell it takes a lot of concentration. She still gets b/d mixed up and has to look at the number 3 to write it.

She also struggles with ideas to write about and takes about 30 minutes to write 3-4 sentences, which doesn’t happen independently (even on meds). I am trying to gauge if this is just the ADHD or if there could be an added dysgraphia component that would give us more specific tools. I know Reddit can’t diagnose, I’m just hesitant to ask for a medical test if this is just her ADHD and doesn’t sound anything like dysgraphia to the dysgraphia experts. 😉

She homeschools, so I already implement a lot of the accommodations like using graphic organizers, her and I taking turns writing her thoughts, letting her dictate her answers, etc.

I am an adult and since I was a kid I have problems learning dancing or any kind of memorizing and executing a series of movements. It's like my brain and muscles do not see each other eye to eye and they have no coordination unless I get my brain to focus on moving my muscles in a way I want to but it is taxing. I take a very long time to memorize dance steps, I was always the last one in my class. I don't have issues with drawing, writing, riding a bike and other things requiring fine motor skills like crocheting, sewing, creating dioramas, origami. However, I have a hard time memorizing the sequence of patterns in crochet or sewing, just like dance steps. Sometimes, in an elevator I press the incorrect button like when I want to close the doors I instead press on the open button. It's like I always need my brain to command my muscles on what to do. In typing, I have been learning for several months but I always have mistakes when I try to rely on muscle memory. My intention and my motor movement will not connect, it's like I have a dyslexia when typing. Also, when writing or typing, I cannot do it for more than 10 minutes cause my hands will hurt in the wrist and the whole bone of the ring finger (the whole finger up to the end where it connects to the wrist, and this is for both hands).

I was not tested as a kid cause and I live in a rural place and in a country where there is probably a lack of specialists .

So I have dysgraphia apperently (I was diagnosed years ago) and it hurts when I write which is normal but it doesn't hurt when I write math problems like writing down to solve them

(my best guess is it has something to do with the position of my hands as a write down each line because with normal sentences the lines are much longer and fewer and i take less breaks while writing but with math problems there are more short lines with breaks inbetwen)

I’m very new to this and have not been tested, but it’s all adding up. I have always had poor motor skills and struggled with basic things like riding a bike or learning to tie my shoes. I would do anything possible to avoid gym class because the idea of having to catch/throw/run in front of people was terrifying.

My entire life, people have pointed out my pencil grasp and told me how strange it is. I also hold a fork and chopsticks “wrong”.

I was always praised for my writing as a kid. I was an avid reader and I loved to write. I wrote well beyond my age level and was pushed to pursue writing as a career.

On the other hand, nobody could read my handwriting. It was constantly called sloppy and illegible. It actually looks worse now than it did when I was a kid because I used to try so hard to make it look nicer. I tend to smush letters together into one or just skip them entirely, misspelling very basic words like “th” instead of “the”, and I have all the hallmark traits of both dysgraphia and dyspraxia (except for being able to express my ideas in writing, I guess). I do struggle a lot with poor self esteem related to feeling dumb and inadequate due to a lifetime of sucking at basically everything.

Now I have a job where I use my hands for everything. I’m honestly not very good at it but I had hopes that I would get better with time since I’m still a beginner. Now I’m not so sure. Is anyone able to have a successful career as an artist with this condition?

Ok so I just learned that I may have this and wanted to ask how to get tested? Like who do I talk to if I want to know for sure?

I have it but I've never met some IRL who also has it and I'm in my 30s. It's not something that usually comes up in conversation so maybe that's why but I thought I would ask here.

Hello, r/Dysgraphia community!

We're working on a project to develop an assistive pen (and potentially a writing pad) designed to support individuals with Dysgraphia. The goal is to create a user-friendly tool that can make writing more comfortable. We also aim to offer practical, non-digital options, moving away from screen-based solutions to provide a more affordable writing experience.

To make these tools as effective and practical as possible, we’re surveying to learn more about your experiences, challenges, and preferences with writing. Your insights would be incredibly valuable in designing these tools.

If you have a few minutes, we'd appreciate it if you could participate. Your feedback will be key in developing solutions that support independence and confidence in writing.

Click here to take the survey!

Thank you so much for considering this. Your input means a lot.

Like having to write really slow just so it’s legible is kind of stressful, especially if people are waiting but I don’t have a choice.

Or having to leave a mistake on a written note is aggravating when I had no intention of writing an additional letter or the wrong letter or just deforming the letter because I didn’t go slow enough.

I hate it when I go to write like a lower case e and it just ends up a blob.

Or I plan to write out a sentence but I don’t judge the space I have left and try to make one word smaller to fit and all because I didn’t start far enough to the left.

Or when (I use to do it more often) I’d leave a word out of the sentence, i thought the word in my head but didn’t write it. And then have to fix it somehow.

But the worst part is the doubt about it being dysgraphia because I’m capable of writing if I go slow enough and it looks ok (for a couple of minutes)

I’ve even seen example sheets here and think well that guy doesn’t have dysgraphia thats just looks like regular writing.

I just don’t like the way it feels to write and hate the way it looks when I’m done.

Maybe I don’t have it. I think I was diagnosed as a child but I can’t be sure.

Not sure what I hope to accomplish with this post other than to share my struggles with a group that probably understands it.

Thanks

I never liked writing. It was like I didn't know how to convert my thoughts into writing. Like, I think in shapes and structures and not words. Since my school days, I have been called lazy and sloppy, I used to write not enough. At all. I got diagnosed with ADHD at 20. Mostly because I have the inattention one and not outward hyperactive. It took one failed exam to complete a degree for people to even look at this possibility. It's all so hard. I grieved losing my childhood to undiagnosed ADHD. Now I have to add dysgraphia into the mix. I feel so helpless.