Dysgraphia

The term dysgraphia was coined from the Greek words dys meaning ill or difficult and graphein meaning to write, and is used to describe a severe problem with handwriting. Synonyms for dysgraphia include motor agraphia, developmental motor agraphia, special writing disability, specific handwriting disability, specific learning disability in handwriting.

Dysgraphia is characterized by the following symptoms:

• Generally illegible writing.
• Letter inconsistencies.
• Mixture of upper/lower case letters or print/cursive letters.
• Irregular letter sizes and shapes.
• Unfinished letters.
• Struggle to use writing as a communicative tool.

In her book Learning Disabilities: Theories, Diagnosis, and Teaching Strategies, Janet Lerner states that some of the underlying shortcomings that interfere with handwriting performance are

• poor motors skills,
• faulty visual perception of letters and words, and
• difficulty in retaining visual impressions.

The student’s problem may also be in cross-modal transfer from the visual to motor modalities.