He can Build a Lego Creation but He Can't Draw/Write?

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http://www.youtube.com/user/vids4autkid ... 82DC8B4798

Sounds like dysgraphia. I have a link to a playlist on correct handwriting grip from my free YouTube Autistic Kids Channel (www.youtube.com/user/vids4autkids1). There are also a playlist on occupational therapy activities and a couple of playlists showing kids how to print the letters. Among the autism links on my free website (www.freevideosforautistickids.com), there is a free handwriting test from Handwriting Without Tears, a handwriting improvement program used in many public schools that you can also purchase off of the net.

Personally, I worked with my son, a nanny worked with my son, and a special ed teacher worked with him on dysgraphia, but nothing successfully worked until we had him do work with a private ABA therapist at our house (private pay $ 30/hour) three days a week using a grip device and using several fine motor skills games that I purchased at Lakeshore Learning and ToysRUs. We also went to OT one hour weekly, which was paid for by our insurance. Over a period of about 4 months, the grip was cured and the handwriting was much improved.

At one point, the OT said that my son might need to keyboard--that the grip possibly couldn't be fixed, but it was! My older son with this issue has classic autism and all sorts of things have improved that someone or other didn't think could get better. Good luck!

My son is only 2 but HATES coloring on anything but a chalk board pavement with chalk. He doesn't care for painting much either. He loves to play music on his keyboard and is a very rhythmical child. he beats on things in patterns and counts to five when walking.

Writing/drawing, and making lego creations/beadwork are two very different things. If you have ever observed elderly people, a lot of them might have trouble getting a letter in an envelope or tying their shoes but can still knit or crochet.

I can do many visual-motor oriented tasks, some better than most people, but others I struggle with. For example, I can't put my hair in a simple braid or bun and have difficulty tying an apron behind my back. It took me more than a year to learn how to ride a bike and any thing on roller skates or roller blades that involved much more than going in a straight line was out. I also write fairly slowly. I have a fair degree of apraxia in my hands. Yet at the same time, I've never had any accidents in the lab because I work a lot more carefully, I can do very fine calibrations of scientific equipment, I can thread a needle, I can stand on one foot for a very long period of time without losing my balance (probably because I practiced this daily when I was a child) even though I have trouble going down long flights of stairs. I can also type over 60 wpm despite my slow writing speed.

Your son has no problem doing the things he does because those are the things he can do. Two motor activities can look the same but actually involve different parts of the brain. When he's playing with legos his brain is probably functioning in an entirely different way than it does when he's attempting to write or draw.

I would get him some of that lined paper with the dashed line letters and have him practice with those.

Infoseeker, very nice shot. It is a good reminder that there are many ways my son will be able to express his creativity.

Blondeambition, thanks for the links!! I've been wanting more info, particularly some video that helps with examples of things we can start working on. I'm pretty sure he can learn to do it with help . . . maybe he'll never be good at it, but I want to give him a fighting chance to try! Yesterday I discovered he can make a square a lot better than a circle. I was having him try some more things--he kept stopping and asking me to draw what he couldn't--and he kept saying, 'oh, that's not right' and getting new paper. So, he knows what things are supposed to look like, he just can't make his hands do it on paper. It's a start.

Chronos, good to hear your perspective. Makes me think--ok, so I'm not crazy, I haven't failed, and he's not just lazy, etc. It is quite possible to have disparate motor skills.

Just occured to me after reading Chronos' post that nobody ever says, "I just don't understand. He can write all his letters perfectly, but he can't follow the directions to assemble a lego toy."

LOL this describes my NT daughter. At 4 she would write just for fun. I remember her preschool teacher commenting in how well she wrote her letters.

I don't know if this helps you any. But, building with lego blocks honestly requires different muscle groups in the hand to be strong compared to the ones necessary for handwriting. My son is over six years old. Kindergarten didn't help. First Grade, didn't help. He needs some special type of OT to get those particular muscles strong enough to hold a writing utensil. My son isn't even good at holding a spoon or a fork. We even got him a stylus to practice handwriting on the Ipad. It doesn't matter what the instrument is, he just doesn't have the hand strength to use it. The interesting thing is, neither does my daughter. She'll spend hours trying to put shoes on Barbie. But will she use a crayon? No!
Best of luck to you. Remember, we don't know the future. For all we know, pens, pencils, etc. will be obsolete by the time our kids graduate college. All they will need is a finger/ toe and an Ipad. Now, if I could just get them to type . . .

http://www.edmegastore.com/fine-motor-skills.html: fine motor skills stuff for sale.

http://www.especialneeds.com/aba-autism ... -aids.html: fine motor skills stuff for sale.

http://www.hwtears.com/hwt/online-tools/screener: free handwriting screener.

The above three links are from the "autism links" on my free website, www.freevideosforautistickids.com.

I just posted two of the above links today on my website.

You might also try http://www.therapro.com/ for products. I think that I got a weighted glove from that site, and it helped somewhat.

The product that the ABA therapist successfully used with my son with classic autism and is currently using with my younger son was a homemade version of the device below:

http://www.edmegastore.com/handiwriter.html

The device that they had some luck with at school was the one below:

http://www.especialneeds.com/penagain-t ... ncils.html.

(Honestly, the main thing that helped the most was having people work with him four days a week that were able to keep him motivated and withstand his tears of frustration and angry outbursts.)

blondeambition,

A belated thanks for all the links!! We definitely have to get more proactive. Good to know the stuff that is out there, and ideas we can implement ourselves. Sigh. Now to find the time to get this done a step at a time . . .

Hey, I freely admit to paying for help so that I can get more done and have less personal stress.

Currently, an uncertified ABA therapist (who worked at several autism centers, has an M.A. in psychology, and is certified to teach special ed) is helping me out a few hours a week at the rate of $ 30/hr. I found her through my local Autism Society Yahoo! group.

I've also hired in nannies ($ 12-$ 15/hr. here in Texas) and housekeepers/college students at times to help out ($ 7 to $ 10/hr.) before I had the private therapist coming in. I found them mainly off of sittercity.com.

I am generally around the house when people come in to help, which is important if a non-professional is working with your kid, I think.

I have 2 kids on the spectrum and my husband is not really up to doing much due to his own issues.

Generally, I'm the best one to set the course, choose commercial lesson materials, make sure that progress is happening, and make customized speech and reading materials. However, a lot of times, I just need a hand with something that a variety of people are capable of doing. I don't have any unusual talents in the OT area (other than finding materials on sale), so I'm happy to leave the hands on stuff to others.

My son is 11 years old. He can write and draw, but absolutely hates to and only will when he has to. His writing is so slowwwww, it takes him forever. However, he can building anything lego makes and he can design anything in his head with legos. All my son thinks about is lego's and everything I make him do is always done so he can get to legos.

M

My son found writing literally painful, but eventually took to keyboarding really well. At 11, your son is probably ready to learn to keyboard fluently, and I strongly recommend you pursue that with him, since he hates to write. Middle school and high school have a LOT of writing demands, and the faster he can find a comfortable way to meet them, the better off he will be. My son has an accommodation allowing him to take a netbook to school, and he uses that for EVERYTHING, including all his note taking (we found one used with an 8 hour battery life, so it goes through the school day just fine, and since it is a used, older model with NOTHING but schoolwork on it, it is less attractive as a theft target).

Remember that until now your son most likely was not developmentally ready to keyboard, so don't let the fact that he hasn't taken to it yet, despite any efforts you may have made, discourage you. If you target the skill at just the right time, when he is developmentally able (which should be soon if not now), he should take to it.

I think it is great that you found ways to improve the handwriting. While I am thrilled that my son fluently keyboards, that crossed so many major hurdles for us, it is hard to get by without ever having to hand write, and my son does wish he could do it better. While I think that window is probably closed for my son, I would like to integrate more options for other parents to try when we have these conversations. So far, all I tend to say is, "be sure to ask the OT for the exercises so you can replicate them at home; once a week while with the OT isn't likely to make any noticeable improvement, in my experience." It probably all depends on the individual child, of course, but that is the one thing I can never know now for my son: if we'd done more, non-stressful, hand activities at home, could it have made a difference? Maybe yes, maybe no (given how severe his hypermobility is), but some things are worth at least trying.

I am glad we never went the speech to text route. That was offered, but I always believed my son could at least learn to keyboard, and he did. He now has a level of independence he could never have achieved with the level of reliance on technology that speech to text requires.

I've often said that one of these days I will pull all my notes on the process to writing fluency together, and when I do it would be good to integrate what you've done here, if you are willing. There are so many steps involved, and developmental milestones that need to be ridden at the right times, when helping a child with writing issues into a comfortable, life-long process.

Curious about developmental readiness for keyboarding -- does that mean a younger child will have trouble even with hunt and peck, or is it just touch typing that is an issue?

Both of my kiddos started using the computer at age three--hunt and peck and using the mouse and arrow keys with children's programs.

The following program offers both reading and keyboarding lessons for young children, and I have a friend with older twin girls with classic autism who like it:

http://www.readingkingdom.com/

I would personally do the the 30 day free trial before committing in case your child does not like it. My four-year-old finds it boring compared to his computer games and will only do it if I sit there and encourage him.

There are also a couple of children's typing computer programs for sale on Amazon.com featuring popular animated characters.

http://www.freevideosforautistickids.com/Games.html

If you just want them to start using the computer and hunt and peck is okay with you, games will definitely do the trick. Above, I have links to a whole bunch of sites offering free educational online computer games.

The main problem will be wanting to spend too much time on the computer or fixating on a particular game. I pay for parental controls for the Zoodles site to address these issues.

My kids each have a used computer hooked up to the net. Here, there is a Goodwill location that sells used computers and there is a store that also sells used computers. A child can be completely set up for around $ 100 and hook into the parents' Internet service via WiFi or another line.

We have the computers in a living area for easy monitoring by me. The parts where the disks go in are on the floor behind a board to discourage the kids from playing with the parts.

Also, I never purchase anything online on these computers because I don't want the kids to used saved payment information to buy stuff. (This happened to a woman that I know--her four-year-old autistic son bought some children's DVDs.)

Touch typing, or general fluency with the hands in proper position. Kids can get comfortable with a computer much earlier, and even with where the keys are (be wary of bad habits, however), but they aren't likely to be able to really "type," as in the type of typing where one would actually choose it over writing by hand (I can type nearly as fast as you can say it, no one can handwrite that fast).

You want to show them proper position, and encourage consistent use of it, long before they are ready to gain fluency just so they don't develop bad hunt and peck habits, however. With phone use et al hunt and peck becomes a hard habit to break once acquired.

Parents at our elementary school are always lobbying to bring in more keyboarding younger but the data is out there to show it is a waste of instructional time. I very much saw this with my own kids, having bought all the typing software and knowing my son wanted to do it; despite all that, and them seeing me fly on a keyboard, it didn't take off at all until the OT made it her project when my son was in 6th grade. Young kids can use a computer effectively - yes. Type fluently - no.

I live in an area filled with kids who grew up on computers, mostly having their own, and we all bought the software and introduced keyboarding, but my son is the only one his age (14) who is fluent, actually doing it right and able to touch type note taking, et al. If a child can't hand write, that is the level you want.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with introducing it young and letting them play around with keyboarding, but too often parents assume that after all those years, if an 11 year old hasn't gotten it, he's not going to, and that assumption is wrong. Around 11 is when they can finally take off with the skill, if they haven't gotten bored to tears with practice by then (or over confident about limited skill, which is where my daughter, 11, seems to be). Middle school is the time to ADD focus, not just let it slip as seems to naturally happen in most families.