Studies have shown that differences between children with and without handwriting difficulties lie not only in the written product (static data) but also in dynamic data of handwriting process. Since writing system varies among countries and individuals, this study was conducted to determine the feasibility of using quantitative outcome measures of children's drawing to identify children who are at risk of handwriting difficulties. A sample of 143 first graders of a normal primary school was investigated regarding their handwriting ability. The children were divided into two groups: test and control. Ten children from test group and 40 children from control group were individually tested for their Visual Motor Integration skills. Analysis on dynamic data indicated significant differences between the two groups in temporal and spatial measures of the drawing task performance. Thus, kinematic analysis of children's drawing is feasible to provide performance characteristic of handwriting ability, supporting its use in screening for handwriting difficulty.
Sequential strategies of digitized tablet drawings by 6-7-yr.-old children (N = 203) of average and below-average handwriting ability were analyzed. A Beery Visual Motor Integration (BVMI) and a Bender-Gestalt (BG) pattern, each composed of two tangential shapes, were predefined into area sectors for automatic analysis and adaptive mapping of the drawings. Girls more often began on the left side and used more strokes than boys. The below-average handwriting group showed more directional diversity and idiosyncratic strategies.
Previous researches on elementary grade handwriting revealed that pupils employ certain strategy when writing or drawing. The relationship between this strategy and the use of graphic rules has been documented but very little research has been devoted to the connection between the use of graphic rules and handwriting proficiency. Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the relative contribution of the use of graphic rules to the writing ability. A sample of 105 first graders who were average printers and 65 first graders who might experience handwriting difficulty, as judged by their teachers, of a normal primary school were individually tested on their use of graphic rules. It has been found that pupils who are below average printers use more non-analytic strategy than average printers to reproduce the figures. The results also reveal that below average printers do not acquire the graphic principles that foster an analytic approach to production skills. Although the findings are not sufficient to allow definitive conclusions about handwriting ability, it can be considered as one of the screening measures in identifying pupils who are at risk of handwriting difficulties.