Special needs does accord one some extra patience, I'd agree. However, the facts in this case don't argue for much sympathy.

1. She's been at it a long time, apparently--at least three years. Even if we can't expect her to know the rules of spelling and grammar by heart, we CAN expect her to have realized that spell-check is a good thing.

2. The fact that she points out being special needs as an excuse for bad spelling and grammar suggests that she KNOWS it's bad and has done nothing to improve. That's just laziness in anyone; see also first point.

3. Furthermore, I'd conjecture that feeling the need to give excuses suggests that she is aware of negative response she's getting and why she's getting it, and (again) has done nothing to improve the issues. Again, we have a lack of willingness or even outright refusal to improve, even though the fix is so very simple and it seems clear that she's at least smart enough to know what it is.

Given all of the above and the fact that she still puts her stuff out for the world to see, I think the world is entitled to its continued negative response. If it were anything but writing, I would say differently, but it is SO EASY to clean up a piece of writing, at least mechanically, that I find it very hard to sympathize with people who don't even bother with a simple spell-check, whether they're eleven, or special needs, or whatever.

... Of course, I also think that over-reliance on spell-check probably means that people don't learn to spell properly for themselves. But that's a whole other issue.

~Neshomeh, possibly controversial.