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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Computerized temporal handwriting characteristics of proficient and non-proficient handwriters.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to use computerized temporal measures to examine and compare the writing process of proficient and non-proficient third-grade handwriters. METHOD: A computerized digitizer system was used to compare the temporal handwriting measures of two groups of 8-9-year-old students. Classroom teachers used a questionnaire to identify 50 students who were non-proficient handwriters and 50 students who were proficient handwriters. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) analyses were used to test for the group differences across tasks for each dependent variable. Total time, "on paper" time, "in air" time, speed, and number of characters per minute were recorded as the participants performed graded writing tasks. RESULTS: Non-proficient handwriters required significantly more time to perform handwriting tasks [F(4,91) = 14.83, p < .0001]; their "in air" time, was especially longer as compared to the proficient handwriters [F(4,91) = 13.63, p < .0001]. Their handwriting speed was slower [F(4,91) = 5.99, p < .0002], and they wrote fewer characters per minute (F(4,91) = 14.63, p < .0001). CONCLUSION: The use of a computerized handwriting system provides objective temporal measures of handwriting performance, and may lead to the development of additional tools for the evaluation and treatment of handwriting difficulties.

Agraphia↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The relationship between the Evaluation Tool of Children's Handwriting and teachers' perceptions of handwriting legibility.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the Evaluation Tool of Children's Handwriting (ETCH) and teachers perception of handwriting legibility METHODS: The ETCH was administered to 45 first-grade students with illegible handwriting as reported by their teachers. The teachers completed a teachers questionnaire at the same time to indicate the children's level of handwriting difficulties both in general and in specific tasks that resemble the test tasks of the ETCH. RESULTS: There was no significant relationship between the ETCH scores and the teacher questionnaire scores in either general legibility or task-specific legibility. CONCLUSION: The ecological validity of the ETCH, in reference to the teachers' perception of handwriting legibility, was not established. Further changes for scoring criteria may be warranted before the ETCH can be used with confidence that the scores obtained are meaningfully related to actual performance in the classroom as determined by teachers.

Child↗
PubMed2003

Use of a task-oriented self-instruction method to support children in primary school with poor handwriting quality and speed.

Two studies were conducted to investigate the effect of a task-specific self-instruction intervention to improve handwriting ability of children with poor handwriting quality in schools for regular education (Study 1) and children with poor handwriting quality in schools for special education (Study 2). Study 1 showed that children with poor handwriting quality who received handwriting intervention on an individual basis for three months improved on average more on quality of writing than control children without handwriting problems who did not receive intervention. In contrast, the control group improved more in speed of writing after the intervention period. At an individual level, three out of the seven children with poor handwriting quality before intervention were not classified as such anymore after the intervention period. Study 2 showed that after six months of intervention in a group setting children with poor handwriting quality improved their quality of writing more so than children with poor handwriting quality who had not received intervention. On speed of handwriting no significant group differences emerged. We conclude that the task-oriented self-instruction method applied in this study seems to improve especially the quality of handwriting, not speed, of children initially identified as having poor handwriting quality.

Agraphia↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Relationships between handwriting and keyboarding performance of sixth-grade students.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the relationships between sixth-grade students' handwriting speed and legibility and their keyboarding speed and error rate. A second purpose was to examine how well handwriting performance discriminates students as slow or fast in computer keyboarding. METHOD: After participation in a school-required keyboarding class, 40 sixth-grade students were asked to copy a familiar poem using handwriting and keyboarding. Handwriting legibility and speed and keyboarding speed and errors were measured. Relationships among these variables were analyzed using Pearson product-moment correlations and discriminant analysis. RESULTS: Keyboarding speed correlated with handwriting legibility (n = 38, r = .361, p = .026), suggesting that handwriting performance accounts for 12% to 13% of the variance in keyboarding performance. Handwriting speed and legibility together accurately categorized 71% of students as slow or fast in keyboarding. On average, students were able to keyboard faster than handwrite. Of the 20 slowest handwriters, 75% achieved more text production with keyboarding than with handwriting. CONCLUSION: Keyboarding performance demonstrated low to moderate correlation with handwriting performance, suggesting that these forms of written expression require distinctly different skills. Most students who were slow at handwriting or had poor legibility increased the quantity and overall legibility of text they produced with a keyboard. These results suggest that keyboarding has the potential to increase and improve a student's written output.

Child↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Perceptual-motor function of school-age children with slow handwriting speed.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated differences in perceptual-motor measures and sustained attention between children with slow and normal handwriting speed and the relationship between these factors. METHOD: Thirty-four slow handwriters and 35 normal speed handwriters (7 to 11 years of age) attending elementary schools in Taiwan were given three perceptual-motor tests and a vigilance task to assess sustained attention. Performances on these measures were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance and regression analyses. RESULTS: A significant difference was found between slow and normal handwriters in upper-limb coordination, visual memory, spatial relation, form constancy, visual sequential memory, figure ground, visual-motor integration, and sustained attention. The three significant predictors of handwriting speed for the slow handwriters were age, visual sequential memory, and visual-motor integration. For the normal speed handwriters, age and upper-limb speed and dexterity were the only two significant predictors. CONCLUSIONS: Slow and normal speed handwriters responded to handwriting demands through different perceptual-motor systems. Whereas upper-limb speed and dexterity seems to play an important role in normal speed handwriters, slow handwriters seem to rely more on visually directed processes, including sequence memory and visual-motor integration.

Child↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A validity study of the Evaluation Tool of Children's Handwriting-Cursive.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined concurrent validity of the Evaluation Tool of Children's Handwriting-Cursive (ETCH-C) by comparing ETCH-C total legibility percentage scores with handwriting grades from teachers. The study also identified the legibility percentage score discriminating between satisfactory and unsatisfactory handwriting. METHOD: The participants were 101 fourth graders who completed two handwriting instruments. Three teachers sorted the Cursive Practice and Review work sheets into A, B, C, and unsatisfactory groups to establish handwriting grade. The study compared ETCH-C total legibility percentage scores with teacher grading, using personal judgment of handwriting on the Cursive Practice and Review work sheet. RESULTS: Mean legibility percentage scores increased significantly as handwriting grade increased. The concurrent validity coefficients were .61 for ETCH-C total words and .65 for ETCH-C total letters and handwriting grade. ETCH-C legibility percentage scores discriminating satisfactory from unsatisfactory handwriting ranged from 73% to 82% on ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curves. CONCLUSION: Results support the concurrent validity of the ETCH-C with handwriting grades. A 75% word legibility percentage score discriminated satisfactory and unsatisfactory handwriting.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Predicting occupational performance: handwriting versus keyboarding.

PURPOSE: To determine whether there is a correlation between handwriting and keyboarding speed and accuracy, and whether handwriting and keyboarding share common underlying components. METHODS: Sixty-three typically developing 5th-grade students attended a series of 15 keyboarding lessons for a total of 5 hours. Prior to the lessons, cognitive, sensory, and motor skills related to handwriting were evaluated. Prior to and following the lessons keyboarding and handwriting accuracy and speed were also tested. Correlations were employed to examine relationships between handwriting and keyboarding skills and multiple regression analyses were used to examine the contribution of performance components to handwriting and keyboarding performance. RESULTS: Following keyboarding instruction, a significant correlation was found between handwriting and keyboarding speed, but not in accuracy of these tasks. Similarly, some of the specific tests measuring tactile and oculo-motor functions were found to be related to both handwriting and keyboarding speed, yet accuracy of these tasks did not share common underlying components. CONCLUSIONS: It appears that handwriting and keyboarding accuracy may entail different skills, suggesting that keyboarding may be a potential alternative writing tool for students with handwriting difficulties. It also appears that when students write slowly, handwriting speed should be considered prior to recommending keyboarding for these students. Additional research is required to further support these findings.

Child↗
PubMed2003

Handwriting changes under the effect of alcohol.

Document examiners are often faced with difficulties in evaluating handwriting by persons under the influence of alcohol. Although numerous articles are available on the subject of alcohol influence on handwriting quality, most of them were based on empirical data such as "few" or "increased", without any statistical evaluation. The aim of this research is to determine whether previous observations on reported effects of alcohol on handwriting are valid and to establish the predictability of observing specific effects. A total of 73 participants, who completed all steps of the experiment, were surveyed. Handwriting samples were taken before and after the consumption of alcohol. The test form, including criteria of prior studies used by document examiners, was evaluated with the help of a Olympus X-Tr stereo microscope, direct and oblique angle lighting and a video spectral comparator (VSC 2000). Measurements were done by means of digital caliper, statistics using repeated measures ANOVA, Pearson correlation, Pearson Chi square test, McNemar test and Wilcoxon signed rank test. The results revealed that the handwriting parameters such as word lengths, height of upper and lower case letters, height of ascending letter, height of descending letter, spacing between words, number of angularity, number of tremor, and number of tapered ends are all significantly increased under the effect of alcohol. It was also determined that the significant correlation between the alteration of handwriting parameters such as height of upper and lower case letters, number of angularity, number of tapered ends and the amount of alcohol. Furthermore, it does not confirm the conclusions of previous studies stating that alcohol levels are not proper indicators. Our data strongly confirms that handwriting changes can be observed at any level of alcohol. None of the alterations in handwriting can be attributed to the effects of alcohol intake alone. However, the presence of some alterations together is strongly suggestive that the person was under the influence of alcohol. First of all, the duty of handwriting examiner is to identify if the questioned and known sample are coming from the same source. Consequently, as this explanatory analysis suggests that differences between sober and intoxicated persons can be identified in handwriting, but the examiner's judgement must be proportionately cautious, keeping in mind the abnormally wide range of variation.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Formative evaluation of handwriting quality.

A test developed for formative evaluation of handwriting quality is described and validated. The test is based on a domain of content for the handwriting skill defined in terms of the deviation of the writing in a handwriting specimen from the handwriting standard. A corresponding domain of elementary test items is defined in terms of the means and the variances of the deviations from the handwriting standard in shape, size, and position of each individual letter. The elementary items are scored on a dichotomous scale and cumulated into scores for letter items and a domain-referenced final score that can be interpreted as the fraction of the domain of content of the construct of handwriting quality that is mastered. Validation of the test was based on handwriting specimens from a school class of 23 children, tested in a longitudinal design from Grades 1 through 5. Coefficients of concurrent validity for final scores equal to .91, .86, .88, and .86 were obtained for Grades 1, 2, 3, and 5, respectively, using traits of the handwriting scored on an ordinal norm-referenced scale as criteria. Coefficients of intertest, intertask, intrascorer, and interscorer reliability for final scores equal to .87, .86, .94, and .80 were found, respectively, for the handwriting specimens from Grade 2. A survey of previously published handwriting quality tests indicates that most of them are not well suited for formative purposes although most of them were adequate for summative purposes.

Child↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Testing the effect of kinesthetic training on handwriting performance in first-grade students.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of kinesthetic training' on handwriting performance in first-grade students 6 to 7 years of age who had kinesthetic deficits and handwriting difficulties. METHOD: With a randomized-blinded three group research design, 45 children were assigned to either a kinesthetic training group, a handwriting practice group, or a no treatment group. Kinesthesis and handwriting legibility were measured before and after intervention. Teachers' judgments of handwriting legibility in the classroom setting were sought at 4 weeks after the intervention to see whether any improvement gained would be maintained in the natural setting. Two-way repeated-measures analysis of variance was used for data analyses. RESULTS: At posttest, all groups showed significant improvement of kinesthesis, with no significant difference in the magnitude of improvement among the groups. There was no significant improvement of handwriting legibility as measured by a standardized test in any of the groups, although teachers indicated improvement of handwriting legibility in the classroom setting in all groups. Teachers also reported maintenance of handwriting legibility at 4 weeks after posttest. CONCLUSION: Kinesthetic training did not improve handwriting or kinesthesis in these children. The findings of this study offer no support for use of kinesthetic training to improve handwriting legibility in first-grade students.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2003

Children's handwriting evaluation tools and their psychometric properties.

Handwriting is an important area of evaluation for pediatric therapists. In selecting a handwriting instrument, therapists must not only consider a child's area of handwriting difficulty, but also the psychometric properties of the instrument chosen. This paper reviews five commonly used children's handwriting evaluation tools: (a) Diagnosis and Remediation of Handwriting Problems; (b) Minnesota Handwriting Test; (c) Children's Handwriting Evaluation Scale-Manuscript; (d) Evaluation Tool of Children' s Handwriting-Manuscript; and (e) Test of Legible Handwriting. Each assessment is described including how it is administered, the scoring system, the reliability and validity of each instrument, and purchase information. The strengths and weaknesses of each tool are discussed along with factors affecting handwriting evaluation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Characteristics of handwriting of patients with Huntington's disease.

Patients with Huntington's disease exhibit poorer-quality handwriting, sometimes clinically exhibiting macrographia, an increase in the size of handwriting. To characterize deficits in handwriting of patients with Huntington's disease, we compared the writing of 12 young, 12 age-matched controls, and 12 patients with Huntington's disease. Subjects were asked to write the letter "l" four times, at a constant length, on a graphics tablet that sampled pen position at 200 Hz. Huntington's disease causes chorea (involuntary movement), akinesia (difficulty in initiating voluntary movement), and bradykinesia (slowness and difficulty in maintaining voluntary movement). To distinguish changes in handwriting quality due to involuntary movement from impairments of voluntary movement, handwriting samples with obvious choreic movements were analyzed separately from other handwriting samples. Several measures of quality of handwriting were considered, based on: the regularity and consistency of handwriting, the efficiency of movement trajectories, and the proportions of movement occurring at specific frequencies. Results suggested that Huntington's disease increases variability of movement parameters, and causes problems in producing smooth movements. Choreic movement was best characterized by the number of zero crossings in the velocity function relative to the prescribed number of writing strokes. We hypothesize that macrographia in Huntington's disease occurs when chorea predominates over bradykinesia. Comparisons were made between the handwriting of patients with Huntington's and Parkinson's diseases.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Effects of methylphenidate on kinematic aspects of handwriting in hyperactive boys.

Poor handwriting in hyperactive children often contributes to academic failure. Beneficial effects of methylphenidate on the quality of handwriting have been shown. Using a digitizing tablet, the handwriting of 21 hyperactive boys was examined both during methylphenidate treatment and following withdrawal of the drug. Half of the hyperactive boys were tested first on methylphenidate and then following withdrawal of the drug and the remaining hyperactive boys were examined in the reverse order. Twenty-one control boys underwent the same examination. Velocity and acceleration of handwriting movements were measured. Furthermore, every writing specimen was independently rated by four examiners regarding the quality of handwriting. Following withdrawal of the drug, the quality of handwriting specimens of hyperactive boys was poorer than during treatment with methylphenidate. Statistical comparison of writing movements of hyperactive boys on and off methylphenidate revealed that the medication resulted in a deterioration in handwriting fluency. The results showed that following withdrawal of medication, hyperactive children did not differ from control boys in handwriting movements. The improvement in hyperactive behavior through methylphenidate was associated with increased legibility and greater accuracy of handwriting. The intention to write neatly may interfere with the fluent writing process.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Teachers' survey on problems with handwriting: referral, evaluation, and outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to describe the factors that led elementary school teachers to refer students with handwriting difficulties to occupational therapy, the criteria they used to determine acceptable handwriting, and the handwriting outcomes they looked for after occupational therapy services. METHOD: A paper questionnaire composed of 31 close-ended questions was mailed to 400 first- through fourth-grade regular education teachers from 32 states to collect data from the 2000-2001 school year. The data were analyzed descriptively using frequency counts and converted to percentages. RESULTS: Information was obtained from 314 teachers. The main factor for handwriting referral to occupational therapy was that the student was not improving with classroom assistance alone. Teachers chose not being able to read student's writing as the main criterion they used to determine if the student's handwriting was acceptable, and increased legibility was the most important outcome they desired following occupational therapy services for handwriting remediation. CONCLUSION: The perceptions of regular education teachers on problems with handwriting can provide valuable information to occupational therapy practitioners when providing consultation and direct services related to handwriting in schools.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Individuality of handwriting.

Motivated by several rulings in United States courts concerning expert testimony in general, and handwriting testimony in particular, we undertook a study to objectively validate the hypothesis that handwriting is individual. Handwriting samples of 1,500 individuals, representative of the U.S. population with respect to gender, age, ethnic groups, etc., were obtained. Analyzing differences in handwriting was done by using computer algorithms for extracting features from scanned images of handwriting. Attributes characteristic of the handwriting were obtained, e.g., line separation, slant, character shapes, etc. These attributes, which are a subset of attributes used by forensic document examiners (FDEs), were used to quantitatively establish individuality by using machine learning approaches. Using global attributes of handwriting and very few characters in the writing, the ability to determine the writer with a high degree of confidence was established. The work is a step towards providing scientific support for admitting handwriting evidence in court. The mathematical approach and the resulting software also have the promise of aiding the FDE.

Adolescent↗