What Is Dysgraphia? A Clinical Psychology Podcast Episode.

During my learning difficulties assessment back in December 2024, the lovely woman conducting the assessment tested me for a wide range of different mental health conditions. She ultimately decided that I only met the criteria for dyspraxia as well as dyslexia, but at one point she wanted to investigate me for Dysgraphia. I mentioned something and she agreed the diagnosis didn’t match me, but I still want to learn more. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what is Dysgraphia, what causes Dysgraphia and a bunch of other fascinating facts. If you enjoy learning about learning difficulties, neurodevelopmental conditions and psychological assessments then this will be a great episode for you.

Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Developmental Psychology: A Guide To Developmental and Child Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

What Is Dysgraphia?

Dysgraphia is a learning difficulty or learning disability that can impair a person’s spelling as well as handwriting. The reason why it can be a learning difficulty or a learning disability is because to have a learning disability you need to have below average intelligence so this is under 70 IQ points. Whereas a learning disability is a condition where someone with average and above-average intelligence can have.

In addition, Dysgraphia isn’t a mental health condition, instead it is a neurodevelopmental condition that is characterised by a difficulty in forming letters, staying within lines, having good handwriting, expressing your ideas on paper and spelling words correctly.

Personally, I understand why the woman doing the assessment wanted to test me for Dysgraphia. She started talking about Dysgraphia once she saw just how horrible my handwriting was, and coupled with dyslexia, it would explain why I struggled with spelling, forming letters and writing.

My assessor described Dysgraphia as the opposite of dyspraxia. Dyspraxia is a difficulty with gross motor skills whereas Dysgraphia is a difficulty with fine motor skills. The reason why she didn’t want to give me a Dysgraphia diagnosis is because I have an above-average typing speed so my fine motor skills are fine.

Even though I highly suspect my friends, family and loved ones would highly disagree at times.

Linking this to diagnosis more widely, there isn’t a single specific test for Dysgraphia. Instead Dysgraphia is tested for using a battery of assessments that includes fine motor skill tests, general writing ability and spatial processing. A person undergoing a Dysgraphia test might be tested on their word and letter formation as well as written expression. Also, a person’s past school reports, written assignments and teacher and parent input might be used as part of the assessment.

Another reason why this links to my own learning difficulties assessment is because I mentioned that my typing skills are above average. Whereas for people with Dysgraphia because the condition impairs their fine motor skills, this can lead them to experience difficulties with typing. Even though sometimes this isn’t the case because both typing and writing use different motor skills so this is why the use of a keyboard is an effective accommodation for children as well as adults with Dysgraphia.

Moreover, Dysgraphia is typically diagnosed in early elementary school (or for my UK listeners, early primary school) because this is when the child is first learning to write, but you can be diagnosed later on in life, including adulthood. And whilst, having messy handwriting doesn’t automatically mean someone has Dysgraphia because a lot of people have messy handwriting. Individuals with Dysgraphia tend to find writing neatly to require intense effort and intense concentration.

This is another reason why looking at clusters of symptoms is important when it comes to psychological diagnosis.

Additionally, the reason why psychologists and other professionals need to be aware of Dysgraphia is because it is really frustrating for the children and adults who have the condition. The symptoms and the social consequences of the condition can lead to high levels of emotional distress. Especially, because when we think about it, someone with Dysgraphia will struggle to spell written words as well as write at a normal speed, but they won’t have difficulties with speaking or reading.

As someone with dyslexia, I know how annoying it is to not be able to spell. You tend to be the butt of jokes, there will be judgmental comments from other people and people who don’t understand you might be horrible to you. I’ve often had interactions that have left me feeling sad, stupid and a little pathetic.

Another fact about Dysgraphia is that the condition can occur in isolation or you can have other comorbidities. For example, dyslexia and if we combine dyslexia and Dysgraphia for a moment. Then not only does a person struggle to write at a normal speed and correctly spell words but they’re also going to have difficulties reading and understanding written words.

This only adds to the emotional distress and additional difficulties that the child or adult faces when it comes to oral and/ or written language.

A final note for this section is that children with ADHD have a higher-than-average chance of developing Dysgraphia and it is more likely for girls with ADHD than boys to develop both dyslexia as well as Dysgraphia. Just remember that this does not mean that ADHD causes Dysgraphia, it is just a comorbidity. 

What Causes Dysgraphia?

Whilst the exact cause of the condition isn’t fully understood, Dysgraphia does tend to run in families so it is understandable that there is a genetic component of the condition. Also, Dysgraphia is a complex condition because it impacts the control of motor skills, word organisation, thinking about words, working memory and generating ideas. This is why children with Dysgraphia tend to struggle with orthographic coding, this is the ability to store written words in working memory or to form memories of written words. As well as children with Dysgraphia can struggle to plan finger movements too.

In addition, you can have something called “acquired Dysgraphia”. This is when a person develops Dysgraphia following a stroke or brain injury.

Finally, for this section, it’s important to note that Dysgraphia and dyslexia are different conditions because they tend to get mixed up. Dysgraphia is a condition that specifically impairs a person’s ability to write and it impacts their spatial processing and motor skills. Whereas dyslexia impairs a person’s ability to read because dyslexic people have difficulties retaining or explaining information that they’ve just read, they don’t always recognise words by sight and they have trouble with sounds.

What Are the Symptoms of Dysgraphia?

As with all neurodevelopmental and mental health conditions that we look at on the podcast, everyone’s presentation of symptoms will look slightly different. At the end of the day, we are all different people with our own bodies, backgrounds and expressions, but there are some common symptoms.

The main difficulties for people with Dysgraphia can be boiled down to difficulties with language processing, spatial perception and/ or fine motor skills.

Firstly, people with Dysgraphia tend to use incorrect lack of punctuation or capitalisation in their writing, they poorly form individual letters and they omit words from sentences. This is a massive issue that my MSc dissertation supervisor had with me in a joking way because I cannot capitalise words correctly to save my life in titles. In my subheadings, I am semi-famous for capitalising every single word including “Of” and “The” when it turns out they shouldn’t be.

Another cluster of Dysgraphia symptoms include having a painful or awkward pencil grip and/ or an unusual position of the body, arm or wrist when writing, they experience frequent hand cramps when they’re writing and they skip letters when writing words.

As I mentioned earlier, this was largely why the assessor didn’t agree with a Dysgraphia diagnosis for me because I didn’t have fine motor difficulties. I don’t put my hands or wrists or body in a weird position. In fact, I try to be very ergonomically conscious so putting my hands and body in painful positions would go against who I try to be.

A final cluster of symptoms of Dysgraphia include having poor sentence organisation and the sentences might be grammatically incorrect, they use words incorrectly and have difficulty thinking and writing at the same time.

Given all of these symptoms, it isn’t surprising to learn that writing can be painful and really frustrating for people with Dysgraphia. This leads people with the condition to want to avoid writing altogether and they feel distressed at the idea of having to write. Unfortunately, this leads children with Dysgraphia to be described as “lazy”, “unmotivated” and other horrible names so this harms the child’s self-esteem. It’s even worse when these negative self-perceptions might last into adulthood, even more so if the Dysgraphia isn’t treated and diagnosed.

This reminds me of a series of interactions I had with a young student who had socio-emotional difficulties and she hated reading because she was embarrassed by it. I didn’t want to shame her, make her feel worse about reading or anything like that. Instead I worked with her to build her emotional and social skills so she could feel more confident. I was even happier when I got her to do some reading towards the end of our work together.

This is why it’s always important to listen, respect and work with a student instead of thinking of them as lazy or anything else negative.

How Is Dysgraphia Treated?

Similar to other learning difficulties, there is no cure for Dysgraphia and this means early intervention and specialist coaching in all skills related to the written language is important in Dysgraphia treatment. In terms of schools, they should make accommodations necessary to help the child improve their handwriting and anything else they need to be able to thrive.

Other treatment options for people with Dysgraphia include physical exercises to strengthen their hand muscles, having extra time to complete written assignments and reduced writing workload. As well as they can do writing activities that help the child to learn how to write complete letters, develop motor control, increase their handwriting speed, write letters from memory and spell the most important and common words that they’ll need to use.

Furthermore, people with Dysgraphia can get wider support through a speech and language therapist, an occupational therapist, a special education teacher and sometimes a psychologist is needed to help a child deal with their frustration and anxiety.

Of course, it’s difficult to add any more depth because everyone with Dysgraphia will need different levels of support, different needs and different accommodations.

In terms of treatment for adults with Dysgraphia, adults can benefit from occupational therapy because if a person can modify their environment through formal or informal accommodations, then this means they might become more successful at work and in their home life. For example, adults with Dysgraphia might benefit from speech-to-text software, taking notes on a laptop instead of by hand, using graph paper so it’s easier to write neatly and stay inside the lines as well as using PDF versions of paper forms.

Finally, a reason why aspiring and qualified psychologists need to be aware of Dysgraphia is because adults with the condition might benefit from psychological therapy. Especially, if their self-esteem has been harmed by the condition, even more so if they spent their childhood being called “lazy”, “stupid” or anything else that has eroded their self-esteem over the years at no fault of their own. Therefore, it’s important for us, aspiring and qualified psychologists, to work with clients with Dysgraphia to recognise that their condition is a neurological condition, that has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence and their self-worth. This allows adult clients to over time rebuild their confidence and figure out how to cope with the difficulties they face.

Clinical Psychology Conclusion

At the end of this psychology podcast episode, I’m really glad that we now understand a lot more about Dysgraphia. It isn’t a condition we often hear about, but that doesn’t mean as aspiring or qualified psychologists that it will never impact our clinical work. I always think it is best to try and learn as much as we can, so just in case, a client with Dysgraphia walks into our therapy room. We can help them as best as we possibly can, and of course, if you’re working with a client with Dysgraphia. You will need to learn a lot more about the strategies to help them and the condition.

Yet I hope that this episode has given you a foundation to build your understanding, practice and exploration of the condition.

And ultimately, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode just as much as I did.

I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode.

If you want to learn more, please check out:

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Have a great day.

Clinical Psychology Reference and Further Reading

Adi-Japha E, Landau YE, Frenkel L, et al. ADHD and dysgraphia: Underlying Mechanisms. Cortex. 2007;43(6):700-709.

Chung, P., & Patel, D. R. (2015). Dysgraphia. International Journal of Child and Adolescent Health, 8(1), 27.

Danna, J., Puyjarinet, F., & Jolly, C. (2023). Tools and methods for diagnosing developmental dysgraphia in the digital age: a state of the art. Children, 10(12), 1925.

International Dyslexia Association website. Accessed September 18, 2017.

Kalenjuk, E., Laletas, S., Subban, P., & Wilson, S. (2022). A scoping review to map research on children with dysgraphia, their carers, and educators. Australian Journal of Learning

Difficulties, 27(1), 19-63.

McCloskey, M., & Rapp, B. (2017). Developmental dysgraphia: An overview and framework for research. Cognitive neuropsychology, 34(3-4), 65-82.

Rangasrinivasan, S., Suresh, S., Olszewski, A., Setlur, S., Jayaraman, B., & Govindaraju, V. (2025). AI-Enhanced Child Handwriting Analysis: A Framework for the Early Screening of Dyslexia and Dysgraphia. SN Computer Science, 6(5), 1-26.

Thiel L, Sage K and Conroy P. The role of learning in improving functional writing in stroke aphasia. Disability and Rehabilitation. 2016;38(21):2122-2134.

Yoshimasu K, Barbaresi WJ, Colligan RC, et al. Written-language disorder among children with and without ADHD in a population-based birth cohort. Pediatrics. September 2011;128(3):

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