Disorders of Written Language

         I read Margaret J. Kay's, Diagnosis and Intervention Strategies For Disorders of Written Language. Which talks about all of the complex neurological processes that are involved in writing. "It requires the simultaneous and sequential integration of attention, multiple information sources, memory,  motor skill, language, and higher cognition," according to Kay.
          Disgraphia is a disorder of written language.  It can be classified as, "Specific or non-specific", according to Kay. The specific form is when people have trouble with things that directly effect writing, and non-specific refers to when the problem areas indirectly effect the writing.
          I believe that having an understanding of what is the cause of the difficulty will help us to optimize the intervention that we choose for the student. It's interesting that Kay quotes Stein, Dixon, and Isaacason (1994) as saying, "It may well be the case that many of the difficulties so many students experience with writing are due to the innopportune combination of difficult content to be learned and very little time allocated to learning it."  I know that the amount of complex curriculum is one concern that many teachers have.  How much do you think the size of the curriculum affects the amount of difficulty children have with writing?
            While reading about the Interventions, some of it makes perfect sense, such as "When difficulties are related to the child's age or grade, age-specific remediation of defecit skills is recommended." I assume that "bypass strategies" means strategies that allow the student to simply avoid doing any part of the task that is affected by his or her Learning Disability. The examples given are "shortening assignments, increasing performance time, grading first on the content of the work and then the quality, avoiding negative reinforcement, using oral exams and allowing oral presentations from the student and giving tests in untimed conditions."  I think of "grading first on the content and then the quality as being a remedial step, so I am not completely certain that my definition holds true.
             Direct instruction in areas that need attention is a key.  Another important intervention is to ensure that the writing task is authentic.  I found a website from the National Center For Learning Disabilities http://www.ncld.org/types-learning-disabilities/dysgraphia/seven-important-facts-about-supporting-students-with-writing-learning-disability. Pay particular attention to the Self-regulating strategies and the part about Assistive Technology. I also added this short video about how we may engage reluctant writers using Wordle.