Abstract
The Learning Difficulties Clinic at St. Thomas' Hospital comprises the Physician in Charge, Remedial Teacher, Occupational Therapist, Speech Therapist, Secretary/Receptionist, and sometimes Eurhythmy Therapist.
Children (and occasionally adults) are normally referred by medical, educational and parental sources.
The Occupational Therapist assesses the individual's manual dexterity, hand/eye coordination and a sample of handwriting (dictated). The Graham & Kendal “Memory for Design” test and “Visual Sequential Memory” subtest from the Illinois Test for Psycholinguistic Abilities are also administered by the Occupational Therapist, but these could also be carried out by any other team member since they are not a definitive Occupational Therapy speciality.
When each member of the team has assessed the individual, they meet for a case conference when assessment results are discussed and recommendations are made. At this stage, the individual is referred for Occupational Therapy sessions if handwriting is poor, usually due to neuro-motor or perceptual difficulties. A programme of pre-writing and writing exercises was devised in an attempt to improve the quality of handwriting in a small group of school children. The results suggest that there was significant improvement in mechanical handwriting ability as a result of therapy.
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