As you know already, teaching writing is a difficult, sometimes frustrating and sometimes rewarding, experience. We often have to wonder whether we are "getting through" to our students at all, and whether what we do is really making them more effective critical thinkers, readers, and writers.
Teaching writing to a student with a learning difference, who may not have easy "access" to the strategies and skills we are teaching, can turn moments of speculation into moments of absolute frustration.