Learning- disabled students
experience varied difficulties in handwriting, some of the difficulties often
experienced by the learning-disabled students’ are:
* They evince total disregard for Punctuation.
* They exhibit poor standards of Written
work in comparison to oral ability.
* They manifest several reversals while
writing words e.g. ’sown’ for ‘snow’.
* They find it difficult to stay close
to the Margin.
* These students often cross ‘L’ but
they fail to cross ‘t’ or dot ‘i’.
* They Spell a word in several
different ways in one piece of writing.
* They omit and/or insert letters,
syllables and or arrange them in Wrong order.
* Learning-disabled children Use
upper case letters undiscriminating because they feel more secure with the
capital form e.g. RABBIT.
* They are known for Messy work
with many crossings out words tried several times.
* They experience persistent Confusion
with letters which look alike. E.g. b-d, p-q, m-w, n-u.
Solutions
to Some Common Problems
As
teachers, frequently you may come across children who find handwriting
difficult. The following may give you
some things to look out for as well as some ideas to try which might help:
Posture & position when working at the desk
What you may
observe:
¨
Poor posture ‘slumping over the desk’
¨
Tendency to lean to one side in a awkward position
For some
children they need to consciously think about balancing on their chair. Sometimes they:
* Position the non-writing arm across
the body, hooking the hand or the thumb over the edge of the table.
* Hang onto the chair with the
non-working hand instead of supporting the page.
* Support their head with the
non-writing hand forming a closed kinetic chain.
* Wrap legs around the chair legs and
fix the tummy against the edge of the table.
* Constantly fidget and possibly fall
off the chair.
When a child
has to put this much conscious effort into sitting on a chair, it leaves very
little else for looking, listening or doing.
Writing
- control and pressure
What you may
observe:
¨
The child uses big arm movements to make letters and
shapes.
¨
The movements appear ridged.
¨
The wrist or the whole arm raises off the writing
surface during writing and drawing activities
¨
Lack of finger and thumb movements being used to push
and pull the pencil.
¨
Moving the paper or the body to accommodate
directional changes rather than move his hand.
¨
Tight grasp
¨
Motivation and productivity
Difficulty
with making shapes/ patterns & organizing work
What you may observe:
¨
Difficulty producing shapes – eliminate any perceptual
problems or visual acuity problems.
¨
Starting work from the middle of the page – if this is
happening, consider where the paper is positioned. Is it excessively over to the side of the
writing hand?
¨
Letters do not sit on the line.
For solutions regarding these problems you can read our next Article.
For any of assistance about learning disability in concern of your child you can mail us at:
For any of assistance about learning disability in concern of your child you can mail us at:
counselling.ks@gmail.com
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