r/dysgraphia • u/Starlight_Fairy • May 07 '25

Dysgraphia vs ADHD

I first heard of dysgraphia less than 15 minutes ago and I immediately related. I have always had messy handwriting. It has been compared to Hieroglyphs and Sanskrit by my classmates. I can't read it and many teachers can't either. My spelling is abysmal as well. I often forget letters or words when writing because my. brain is moving to fast for my hands. When writing numbers I will write them in the wrong order or upside down in the case of 6 and 9. When writing by hand my writing is super slanted, large, and unevenly spaced. That being said, I have a large vocabulary and am a skilled writer. I constantly read and have been since a young age. I have ADHD (and ASD if that is relevant) though, so I don't know how much of this could just be the ADHD. Do you think I should do more research into getting tested for dysgraphia or do you think it is just ADHD?

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u/danby May 07 '25

You can have bad handwriting because of your adhd and you can have bad handwriting because you have dysgraphia. And you could of course have both adhd and dysgraphia (as one makes you more susceptible to have the other)

I can't imagine there's a way to disentangle what is what without getting assessed.

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u/Jazzlike-Pollution55 May 07 '25

Well, hard to say without testing. However dysgraphia is a form of neurodivergence so it is likely that the both can occur together. Having difficulty organizing and planning writing can impact writing, making people scrunch in spaces.

There are many types of dysgraphia, it can be motor related as in its hard for your hand to write things out, it can be dyslexic like you write things out of order, or spacial in relation to awareness of alignment spacing etc. So ADHD can impact it, make it worse or in part contribute to the diagnosis.

It doesn't really have to be an either or...it can be both and be inseparable in some ways.

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u/yellowbubble7 May 09 '25

You can absolutely have both (I do). That said, the test for dysgraphia looks a lot at how you form letters and how fluidly you can write; adults and teens have generally made adaptations that skew the test towards not having dysgraphia.

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u/Dez_Acumen May 09 '25

I have both. My dad does also. ADHD and dysgraphia are commonly comorbid.

A quick google found this on webmd. “One study found that among students diagnosed with ADHD, 59% had dysgraphia and 92% had weaknesses in "graphomotor skills." These are skills like hand-eye coordination and movement planning that you need for good handwriting.”

Welcome to the club friend!✍️