Mary Kostka (Ohana OT) introduces the Handwriting Success coaching program and gives an overview of the dynamics of dysgraphia. She defines dysgraphia as a specific, brain-based developmental disability affecting handwriting (not laziness), outlines multiple ways it can present (pencil grasp, posture/thought-to-paper, spelling, visual perception/letter placement and formation), and emphasizes handwriting is a complex, integrative human skill. The clip is introductory and invites viewers to subsequent videos.
Hi everyone. Mary Koska here with Ohana OT and this is our Handwriting Success coaching program where I will help you, whether you're a parent, a teacher or a therapist, help you with your child to help them be much more successful with handwriting. In this video we're going to go over some of the dynamics of dysgraphia. So dysgraphia is, is a specific developmental disability that impacts their ability to write. So they have impaired handwriting and it's an actual brain based issue. It's not the result of being lazy at all. And it can have lots of, it's really complicated. It's a lot of different areas that it can affect. So it can affect just their ability to hold a pencil, it can affect their ability to sit and get their thoughts on paper. It can affect their ability to spell, can affect their ability to their visual perception, where to place the letters, how to form the letters. There's so many different components and handwriting is really a very integrative skill. It's one of the most, if not the most, probably driving is the most complicated human skill that we learn to do and we have to pull a lot of different things together and make it all work together. So dysgraphia is, it can look just like messy handwriting. They just don't want to do, can just have so many different forms. But the most important thing to understand is that the child is having a true physiological problem that's preventing them from doing well and they're not being lazy. It's a real disability. And I'll see you in the next video. Thank you.
