Special Ed in the 21st Century

two kinds of writing disabilities. One group has initial trouble learning to read; the children respond well to instruction, but have persistent problems with writing. One of these children commented to this author, "OK, so now you cured my dyslexia; now what are you going to do about my dysgraphia?"

For many other children, writing problems develop even though they learned to read quite easily.

several reasons for writing difficulty: a) underdeveloped spelling, handwriting or composing skills, singly or in combination; b) processing problems related to handwriting, spelling and composition to included orthographic or phonological coding, fine motor planning, automatic letter retrieval and production, working memory, and so forth; or, c) attention deficit disorder. In addition, some children have simply not had a program of coordinated, explicit instruction in all the component skills needed to develop a functional writing system.