[SwellJoe]

"I grew up with awful handwriting, to the point of failing Standardized Testing, I recall being one of the first students to be allowed to type it(I suspect it's all done this way now)."

I was diagnosed with dysgraphia in 4th grade and was allowed to type most things from then on; except by a couple of shitty teachers who thought I was just being lazy or something (and, not coincidentally, those were the classes I failed and was held back in). This was back in the 80s when learning disabilities were somewhat novel in small-town schools in the south. I was lucky enough to have a computer (a C64, with printer!) at home beginning around that same age. I don't recall if it came into the house before or after my diagnosis...probably just before.

I've always thought I was really lucky to have had a computer at such a young age at the time, but now that I'm thinking of it on the timeline of when I was dealing with having trouble writing and being treated like I was stupid by teachers because of it, I'm seeing that luck and privilege in a new light. Once I got a copy of SpeedScript and later GeoWrite, I was able to do nice reports and homework...it became somewhat of an advantage or at least less of a curse.