While typical children enjoys coloring activities, it seemed to be a very tiring activity for C. He was sweating, his lips tucked showing his eagerness to do the task while his hand moved unsteadily.
Handwriting may seem to be an arduous task for C. But surprisingly, he never refused to do it even when at home. He would finish every writing exercises presented to him. It was heart breaking watching him making strokes while struggling to hold his pencil. He wrote as if really his pencil was heavy as a log.
But that was then. After two years of hard work, C's efforts paid off. He can now write his name and a few common words. Lately he is into drawing, particularly shapes, then coloring them afterwards. Writing and drawing used to be a strenuous thing to do for him.
Now, he enjoys doing it. The pencil is not as heavy as a log after all now that he can write with ease.
It took a long time for C to learn how to write. His handwriting and drawings may not be exceptional. But those little achievements are big enough for him to be proud of. We should value even the littlest achievement a special child may ever have for we do not know what he has to overcome or go through just to accomplish that.
At the end of this school year, a Recognition Ceremony was held. C was awarded Most Improved in Writing Skill. That crowned all the concerted efforts of his teachers, therapists and parents, and most of all his determination to overcome the challenge of what seemed to be impossible for him to achieve.
Handwriting is often learned with difficulty by most children with Autism. Even the high functioning ones find it hard to master this skill. Handwriting may seem of less importance to special children since the primary goal of education and therapy is to make them self reliant individuals later on in life hence putting more emphasis on daily living skills and sensory integration. But handwriting becomes important when the child is envisioned capable of being mainstreamed or included in regular school. The regular class requires a lot of writing and copying making it hard for Autistic children to cope up even when intellectually they are at par with their classmates who do not belong to the spectrum. Special learners can benefit from the advent of the computer wherein simple press and click should do the job and handwriting would no longer be necessary. But that is not the setting in our schools.
Reason behind this handwriting difficulty is in relation with the problem with fine motor control as found out by Bastian and colleagues in a study done in Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. With poor motor control found even in high functioning children with Autism, not only handwriting is affected but also the use of eating utensils. But there is a lot of hope. When this fine motor problem is properly addressed with the help of occupational therapy, handwriting can be learned although it may took a lot of effort. Some children under the spectrum even have more legible handwriting than some typical children.
I would like to share some writing exercises. They were from my son's Occupational Therapist and we used these at home when he was still in the process of strengthening his grip and firming his strokes. I would ask him to trace or follow the broken lines and reward him with my appreciation and encouraging words when he was done.
May I also share this website, Therapy Street for Kids, which I find very helpful and rich in easy to follow guidelines and techniques that can be implemented at home and enhance your child's Occupational Therapy Program. This site also contains valuable information on fine motor stregthening, pre-writing and handwriting skills.
I hope these would also help your child or a loved one get over the challenges of handwriting and finds out that the pencil is not heavy as a log after all.
Photo Credits:
School Boy by Arvind Balaraman
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