What are the differences between people who have dyslexia, and people who have a hard time writing papers?

What are the differences between people who are bad at writing papers and people who have dysgraphia?

• Answer:

  With Dysgraphia the persons hand writing is very messy, words can be a mix of capitol and lower case letters, words can be squashed together or to widely spaced, sentences can trail up or down the page if there is no lines to keep it in line, spelling difficulty and some letters such as b, d, p, q, m, w etc are reversed, and the person takes time to copy from books & boards, and an in ability to write down their thoughts etc on paper, so their work can be disjointed, does not flow, spelling mistakes not picked up or corrected. But with the use of a computer which has specialized computer programs installed, it can help some of the issues a dyslexic, dysgraphic etc has. The other thing is if the teachers, lectures and the college is are aware the student has dyslexia or dysgraphia, they can help the student in a number of ways, such as note taker, access to computers with specialized programs installed, and tutor etc. And the teacher/lectures will often get to know the students writing style even when using a computer. Someone who is bad or sucks at writing essays etc, may have similar problems as the dysgraphic person, but don't have a recognized LD such as dyslexia/dysgraphia. They may also recognize they have misspelled words etc, but don't bother to fix it, their work may not be as disjointed or disorganized etc as a dysgraphic. Dyslexia can affect all aspects of a person learning, with difficulties with reading, writing, spelling, maths, memory, sequencing skills, reversal of letters, p, q, b, d, m, w, and some numbers, transposing of words such as was to saw, omitting words and difficulty pronouncing words, especially unfamiliar words, and confusion between left & right and difficulty reading maps. As a dyslexic person who did not know I had a LD until I was 30, I was often told by teachers, that I was careless in my written work, littered with spelling mistakes (often homophone words), with poor grammar & punctuation etc, I did not learn to read until I was 14, and was bad at maths etc, this is despite my hand writing being very neat (which the teachers thought odd, considering I could not read etc). When studying to become a Youth & Disability support worker my teachers & lectures knew I was dyslexic, and exactly how it affects me. The teachers/lectures became to know my writing style, even using a computer, and they often ignored my homophone spelling mistakes etc. This became very apparent when we had a group assignment, with four other students, we each had a section to do of approximately 2000 words, and a couple of the group had fallen very short of 1000 words (Nelie & I told them they needed to add more, to their work, they refused, so Nelie and I added to it). The lecture knew that the bulk of the work was written by me & Nelie because of her writing style. While we passed the unit as a group, the lecture let the rest of the group know that she knew exactly who did what and was disappointed that they had not done enough therefore we got a low grade pass despite it being a "excellent piece of work". My daughter also has dyslexia, but her hand writing & spelling is greatly affected.