I was diagnosed at age 40 as having 'classic symptoms of' Micro Motor Disorder - acquired during the birth process - and had suffered with poor handwriting.

Now, the nice lady was able to demonstrate that it was 'classic', because in a totally silent room I could copy the most intriciate squiggles exactly. When she even just whispered my name in an ear, this accuracy would instantly dissapear. She said it was not unlike the ability of 'foot & mouth painters' who could summon other parts of the body to do tasks that they could not perform due to bodily damage - but with MMD, as soon as the cannabilised brain circuits needed to revert to their original tasks, the ability to perform the 'secondary tasks' vansihed.

This nicely explained WHY I was the despair of my primary school teachers, able to be 'looking like I was improving' while being 'kept in' after school, but reverting to unitelligible scribble the very next day. How the bloody hell was a child supposed to know what was wrong with him?

I can well remember being dragged out in front of the class and ridiculed for my 'chicken scratches' (well, we DID write with nibs and liquid ink in those days BEFORE 'Biros') - nowadays they would rightfully call that 'child abuse'...

Now the rest of my brain seems to have 'overcompensated' as I was Wasir tested (a couple of weeks before this - whic is WHY I was referred for this test as my only area of poor performance was in the 'clerical abilites' area) with a IQ at SD+5... :-)

I was however well schooled in Primary in pedantics of spelling, grammar, sentence construction, Latin & Greek roots, etc...

Yes, I know, a smart arsed untidy bastard...