Learning to write again
16 February 2026
The best way we have to show people what's happened in Amelia's brain is the change in her handwriting.
When Amelia first became unwell, she was an avid reader, loved making a to-do list, loved writing and school and had pretty solid handwriting. We'd noticed her reading less and less as she became more unwell, but we didn't realise what was happening until she asked me how to write 'To Dad' on a colouring in she had done. I told her, and she wasn't able to write the letters. Her writing was unrecognisable.
For about six months, we didn't see her write at all - and then slowly she started to try again. She started trying to write a list, but it was just squiggles (1). Then she started to write words (2). It was borderline illegible, but if you tried you could read it.
Slowly her writing improved until she could write paragraphs and sentences again, but her handwriting was still impacted. She was writing letters as they appeared, not forming them the way that we learn when we first start writing. For example, an h - to look at - looks like an 'n' with a line. So that's how she wrote it.
For the best part of a year, this was her writing (3) and we thought that we'd never see her normal handwriting again.
One of her incredible teacher aides decided to focus on her handwriting and within a few weeks of handwriting practice - Amelia relearned how to form the letters properly - and it slotted into place (4). We couldn't be more proud of her if we tried.
