Autisum 
       The average human processes 13 to 30 cycles of brain wave energy per second in their conscious state.
A child with autism can process up to 250,000 cycles of brain wave energy per second in their conscious state.
Some people on the autism spectrum are overly smart and show it in their own special way.  Some of the famous people with autism or autistic characteristics are Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Beethoven , Van Gogh, Mozart, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Edison.  Temple Grandin is another well known person with autism.  The movie about her life won 7 emmy awards on Sunday, August 29,2010.   
       Dr. Grandin didn't talk until she was three and a half years old, communicating her frustration instead by screaming, peeping and humming.  In 1950, she was diagnosed with autism and her parents were told she should be institutionalized.  She tells her story of "groping her way from the far side of darkness" in her book
Emergence: Labeled Autistic, a book which stunned the world because, until its publication, most professionals and parents assumed that an autism diagnosis was virtually a death sentence to achievement or productivity in life.
       Even though she was considered weird in her young school years, she eventually found a mentor who recognized her interests and abilities.  Dr. Grandin later developed her talents into a successful career as a livestock-handling  equipment designer, one of very few in the world.  She has now designed the facilities in which half the cattle in the United States are handled.  She consults for firms such as Burger King, McDonald's, Swift and others.
       Dr. Grandin presently works as a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University.  She also speaks around the world on both autism and cattle handling.  At every Future Horizons conference on autism her presentations rate a 10+.  Other books she has written are The Way I see it: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger's,  Unwritten Rules of Social Relationsips, Thinking in Pictures, Animals Make Us Human and others.  All books and DVD's are available through Future Horizons.

Strategies for dysgraphia

The West Virginia University website has about 50 different strategies for these students.  It is www.as.wvu.edu/~scidis/dysgraphia.html.  I will list ten for your information and review.  

1.  Encourage students to outline their thoughts. It is important to get the main ideas down on
     paper without having to struggle with the details of spelling, punctuation, etc.

2.  Have students dictate their ideas into a tape recorder and then listen and write them down later.

3.  Have students draw a picture of a thought for each paragraph,

4.  Encourage student to talk aloud as they write.  This may provide valuable auditory feedback.

5.  Allow more time for written tasks including note-taking, copying, and tests.

6.  Allow students to use paper or writing instruments of different colors.

7.  Reduce copying aspects of work; for example, in math, provide a worksheet with the problems
     already on it instead of having the student copy the problems.

8.  Allow students to use graph paper for math, or to turn lined paper sideways, to help with lining up columns
    of numbers.

9.  Teach alternative handwriting methods such as "Handwriting Without Tears" (www.hwtears.com/inro.htm).

10.  Do papers and assignments in a logical step-wise sequence.  An easy way to remember these steps
      is to think of the word POWER.

     P - plan your paper
     O - organize your thoughts and ideas
     W - write your draft
     E - edit your work
     R - revise your work, producing a final draft
______________________________________________________________

Dysgraphia does not have to limit creativity as shown by the sample below composed on a computer by a 12 year old dyslexic and dysgraphic student.

1)  First draft of creative story as typed by 12 year old student:

the way I descride a bumby ride is like wothgan mowtsarts mowsek. eshe bumby rowd is like a song.  Eshe bumb is the a note eche uncon at the sam time ste is, that was the mewstere to mowts mowsuk it was vare metereus and unperdekdable.  So the next time you drive down a bumby theak of mowtsart.

2)  Same story.  Student read to teacher using his draft:

"The way I describe a bumpy ride is like Wolfgang Mozart's music.  Each bumpy road is like a song.  Each bump in the road is a note.  Each bump is uncontrolled at the same time it still is controlled.  That was the magic  to Mozart's music.  It was very mysterious and unpredictable.  So the next time you drive down a bumpy road think of Mozart."

Symptoms of Dysgraphia

1.  Strong verbal but particularly poor writing skills.
2.  Random or nonexistent punctuation.  Spelling errors (sometimes the same word spelled differently)
     reversals; phonic approximations; errors in suffixes.  Clumsiness and disordering of syntax; an impression of
     literacy.  Misinterpretation of questions and questionnaire items.  Disordered numbering and written number
     reversals.
3.  Generally illegible writing.
4.  Inconsistencies:  mixture of print and cursive, upper and lower case, or irregular sixes, shapes or slant of
     letters.
5.  Unfinished words or letters, omitted words.
6.  Inconsistent position on page with respect to lines and margins and inconsistent spaces between words
     and letters.
7.  Cramped or unusual grip, especially holding the writing instrument very close to the paper, or holding
     thumb over two fingers and writing from the wrist.
8.  Slow or labored copying or writing - even if it is neat and legible.

Dysgraphia  is a learning disability resulting from the difficulty in expressing thoughts in writing  and graphing.  It generally refers to poor handwriting.  A student with any degree of handwriting difficulty may be labeled dysgrahic by some educational specialists, but may or may not need special education services.  Students with dysgraphia often have sequencing problems.  Studies indicate that what usually appears to be a perceptual problem (reversing letters/numbers, writing words backwards, writing letters out of order, and very sloppy handwriting) usually seems to be directly related to sequential/rational information processing.  They have difficulty with sequence of letters and words as they write.  These students need to slow down in order to write accurately, or experience extreme difficulty with the mechanics of  writing.  Sometimes as a result of slowing down, they lose the thought they are trying to write about.

Students with ADHD often experience significant difficulty with writing and formulas in general and handwriting in particular.  This is because ADHD students are often processing information at a very rapid rate and simply don't have the fine-motor skills to keep up with their thoughts.  Please remember that written language is the most difficult form of language expression.

Although most students with dysgraphia do not have visual or perceptual processing problems, they may experience difficulty with the writing speed and clarity simply because they aren't able to fully process the visual information as they are placing it on the page.  Also if they have a general auditory or language processing weakness weakness, they will have difficulty with language expression. (www,wvu.edu)

Next Time:  Symptoms of Dysgraphia