Zoe, aged 6 years with Autism

Zoe is a young girl of 6 years who has a diagnosis of autism. Zoe has from a young age shown excellent ability to access words for reading, she has a lot of language but has struggled to use her speech for communication with others.

Until this year Zoe has been attending a mainstream primary school with a special unit attached, where she spent a lot of her time. Since transitioning to the Junior School, Zoe spends more time in the mainstream classroom with support.

Despite being aware of letters with word when reading Zoe found it very difficult to write letters with correct spatial orientation and formation. She has since the HTW was introduced applied the cognitive components of the programme to help link together her knowledge of letters with the correct formation and spatial placement.

As her knowledge improved her interest in writing her letters grew, however it was evident that eye hand integration and spatial planning were a challenge for her. To help address this Zoe started the visual planning activities at an early stage, building her skills for integrating her visual skills with the movements go her hand.

Zoe is a learner who needs repetition and consistency and through delivering the programme at home, it soon transitioned into school, where Zoe has proven to be the more able handwriter in her class. Zoe with the support of HTW is now able to write in full cursive with developing spatial placement, in line with her same aged peers.

How did HTW help Zoe?

Zoe learnt to:

• Categorise the 26 letters of the alphabet into 3 category groups for letter formation
• Remember the letters in each category group and recall them with ease
• Associate each with the correct height and spatial placement
• Write each individual letter with the lead in and lead out line
• Learn to write and position the letters on the baseline
• Learn to join the letters together to make words
• Learn to write all letters with the correct formation automatically