Dysgraphia, also known as agraphia, is a medical disorder where a person’s writing skills are below their age level despite receiving age-appropriate education. It is caused by a lack of fine motor skills due to congenital factors or neurological trauma. There are three main types of dysgraphia, and treatment includes memory exercises, occupational therapy, and computer use.
Although they can read, some people cannot write due to a condition known as agraphia. Also known as dysgraphia, poor writing is not an intellectual disability. Instead, it is a condition often based on the lack of certain fine motor skills, usually due to congenital factors or neurological trauma.
A writing disorder, dysgraphia isn’t simply messy handwriting or sloppy spelling. It is, rather, a medical disorder in which a person’s writing skills are below their age level despite receiving an age-appropriate education. A person with dysgraphia has writing skills well below their measured level of intelligence.
Dysgraphia usually becomes apparent in early childhood when children are learning to write. When writing, children with dysgraphia may write with different sizes, abnormal spacing between letters, or misspelled words. Although other learning disabilities may be present in a child with agraphia, social impairments and other academic problems are usually not a problem for these children. Children born with the disorder typically have many other dysgraphias in their families, usually including a close relative or parent.
Adults with dysgraphia who were not born with the disorder typically do so following a head injury. Brain disease or brain damage can also cause the condition. People with autism, Tourette syndrome, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may also have agraphia.
People with agraphia can typically write to some degree. Few victims of agraphia can’t write at all. Many people with the disorder also lack other fine motor skills, such as tying their shoes. Agraphia, however, does not usually affect all fine motor skills, and some victims may actually have little or no difficulty typing on a computer.
There are three main types of dysgraphia. Dyslexic dysgraphia occurs in people who can copy words legibly, but write and spell themselves poorly. People with motor dysgraphia may have a bigger root problem with their illegible handwriting, which is often due to poor muscle tone, motor deficiencies, or poor dexterity. Spatial dysgraphia occurs in people who lack the ability to understand letter spacing and does not usually affect spelling skills.
Basic spelling and grammar skills, particularly with some letters, are also common in cases of dysgraphia. Many people with the disorder write different words than they intend to write on paper. People with dysgraphia also suffer from high levels of stress due to frustration with their writing skills. Treatment of agraphia generally includes memory exercises, occupational therapy, neurological therapy, exercises for motor impairments, and computer use to avoid handwriting.
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