Laptops, Laptops....

It's apparent the kid will be needing a laptop....
It's also apparent the kid is a kid in a school with many other kids making the risks to the laptop more than standard risks.

So do you go for a relatively inexpensive new machine or a rugged machine?

I'm tempted to go rugged, but my initial look around at the rugged variety (toughbook, durabook, etc) seem to indicate that they are quite pricey.

Maybe a used rugged is the way to go. After all, all the kid really needs it for is word processing, it's not a gaming machine, it's a tool to help him get around the challenges his dysgraphia causes.

Perhaps the learning disability groups need to get together with the organizations that use rugged laptops and make some arrangement where when the organization upgrades its system it donates the machines to kids with LD's like dysgraphia who need the machines, and need something a bit more 'rough and tumble' than the run of the mill but less pricey. A laptops for learning campaign...

Welcome to the World of Step-Parenting a Gifted Dysgraphic!

Well the results of the psych-ed assessment are in - my 11-year-old stepson has exceptional gifts in the verbal language department and reading department but has some serious deficits in the written language department. He is both gifted and dysgraphic - a frustrating combo in which he has great ideas but can't communicate them in his writing because writing for him is like asking a blind man to see what is beneath his nose.

So for the cost of $2,000, I know now what I knew before - that I could have an exceptionally intelligent conversation with the kid but watching him write his homework was both slow and frustrating. Also, for the cost of $2,000, we can now have permission to start making his life easier by equipping with the tools he needs to circumvent his disability and enable him to meet his full potential.

So why start a blog about it? Because, I can tell that my homework assignment is just beginning and I may as well provide some crib notes for other parents also experiencing the joys and frustrations of a gifted dysgraphic kid...