2026 LDA Conference Recap

Dysgraphia Life presented at and attended the Learning Disabilities Association of America Conference in St. Louis, MO last week. There were many excellent presentations on ways to support students who struggle with written expression. Here is some of what we heard:

Comprehensive Approach to Executive Functioning and Learning Disabilities: A Perspective from an Occupational Therapist

Sydney Krueger, MOT, OTR/L, Occupational Therapist, American Occupational Therapy Association

Working memory and motor planning support writing, and there are a lot of things that can get in the way of these functions for students with writing challenges, including sensory dysregulation and core muscle strength.

Sensory dysregulation can impact executive function for writing tasks: There are unique sensory inputs that everyone needs in order to stay regulated during the day. Students who are overstimulated may need calming activities while students who are understimulated need alerting activities. Creating the right sensory balance for a student could improve their written expression.  The speaker gave an example of students she has worked with who had very messy handwriting, but it improved after playing in the gym. Having physical stimulation is an alerting activity in this case. A calming activity before a writing assignment might be listening to music, doing yoga, or using compression/weighted items.

Core muscle strength can impact ability to write by hand: Some students may look like they are being impulsive by leaning or laying on the desk or table, but they may actually have poor core strength, and this is impacting their writing. It can help to make adjustments – like using slant boards, having them lay on the ground while writing, or using other supports – while an OT works on developing core strength.

Unlocking Handwriting Success: Motivating Kids and Special Populations to Enjoy Writing!

Polly E. Benson, OTR/L

President, CEO, LegiLiner, LLC

Continuing with OT approaches to supporting struggling writers, we learned about the “3-Bucket Quick Check” to figure out why a student is having a hard time with writing. The three buckets are: Body, Hand, and Brain. If the body is the challenge, the student may be slumped or fatigued and may benefit from ergonomic support. If the hand is the challenge, the student may have slow and painful handwriting, an awkward grasp, and pressure that is either too light or too heavy. These students may benefit from a warm up and using short bursts of writing, rather than longer exercises. If the brain is the challenge, the student will show some of the signs we see in dysgraphia including avoidance, messy spacing, and inability to start the assignment. They may also benefit from physical movement, similar to the sensory regulation approaches, as discussed previously, and using micro-goals like writing their five best letters or one great sentence. When supporting struggling writers, it is better to do small exercises daily rather than one big session a week – consistency and sustainability is key.

The Anxious Brain: How Stress and Trauma Impacts Academic Learning

Steven G. Feifer, D.Ed. ABSNP

Psychologist

Monocacy Neurodevelopmental Center

26% of children will have experienced a traumatic event by their 4^th birthday and two thirds of children reported one traumatic event by the time they turn 16. Anxiety can mask learning disabilities. Usually when a student is engaged in a goal-oriented task, such as academics, the brain blocks rumination and daydreaming and supports executive function. When anxiety interferes, the brain flood with cortisol, and working memory, task initiation, and executive function are impaired. For a student with dysgraphia, added anxiety creates challenges with idea generation, sentence completion or cohesiveness, and the student gets stuck on a topic, unable to organize their thoughts.

Some suggestions to calm anxiety in the classroom include:

• ·       Advocate for a cell phone-free school

• ·       Consider getting rid of time limits on tests

• ·       Don’t call on a student unless their hand it raised

• ·       Allow students to sit where they want

• ·       Create a “calm corner” in the classroom where a student can go if they are feeling overwhelmed

• ·       Allow students to retake one test each marking period to show mastery 

Using AI to Support Writing Outcomes for Students with Learning Disabilities

Samantha R. Goldman, PhD

Assistant Research Professor, University of Kansas

Many people are reluctant to incorporate AI tools into the classroom for fear that students will use them to do the work that the student should be doing on their own. However, there are many ways to use AI to support written composition and benefits to teaching students to use AI effectively and responsibly.

AI tools can help students with idea generation, editing and revising, planning – essentially becoming a sophisticated multisensory graphic organizer. AI tools can also make the writing process more engaging and fun. And there are good guidelines to ensure that students use AI responsibly. One checklist for students looks like this:

 If a student can attest to these four statements, they are likely getting the full benefit of the assignment, even if they use AI to complete it.

In addition to these benefits, learning to write effective AI prompts and use AI effectively will set students apart from those who don’t actually learn to use it and just repurpose AI content as it comes to them. This will be an increasingly valuable skill to have in future work.

In conclusion, at the 2026 Learning Disabilities Association of America conference, we deepened our understanding of the many factors that can affect written expression—motor planning, working memory, anxiety, motivation, and even the thoughtful use of supportive tools like AI. The key takeaway: when we identify what is truly getting in the way and respond with targeted, practical supports, we make writing more accessible and more successful for struggling learners.