Handwriting characteristics among secondary students with and without physical disabilities: a study with a computerized tool

Reliability, validity, and measurement invariance of a Chinese handwriting legibility scale among primary students in central China

Background

Chinese handwriting has a close relationship with spatial cognition, and the legibility dimension is prominent with its spatial-oriented characteristics. However, handwriting evaluation focusing on the detailed spatial aspects of the legibility dimension in the Chinese context is rare.

Aims and methods

We aimed to develop a Chinese Handwriting Legibility Scale (CHLS) and examine its reliability, validity, and measurement invariance among Chinese primary students of different grades. A total of 684 students aged 8-12 years were recruited from a mainstream primary school in central China and were asked to copy a Chinese template as legibly as possible within 4 min. The developed CHLS was used to assess these students' legibility performance.

Results

The seven-criteria CHLS favored content validity. The inter-rater reliability was good; however, the scoring instructions need to be refined. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed a one-factor solution explaining 62.336% of the variance of the seven-criteria CHLS, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed its appropriateness. There was a high internal consistency (α = 0.902). In terms of measurement invariance, the factor structures and loadings of the CHLS were consistent across students of different grades; however, significant intercept variations were detected between students of Grades 2 and 4.

Conclusion

CHLS may be effective for evaluating Chinese handwriting legibility performance in the Chinese primary school context in the central region. Students' Chinese handwriting legibility performance may have developmental specificity in different grades.

Computerized handwriting evaluation and statistical reports for children in the age of primary school

This study proposed a novel computational method for evaluating logographic handwriting. It can precisely evaluate both the handwriting product and the process. The measures included handwriting performance as well as the temporospatial, kinematics, and kinetics features. For examining the psychometrics of this comprehensive evaluation system, typical development children aged 6 to 9 years old (grade 1 to grade 3) (n = 641) were involved in the study of factor analysis. From twelve measuring variables, the exploratory factor analysis extracted five factors (handwriting performance, motor control, speed and automation, halt and exertion, and “in air” events). The test reliability was confirmed by further recruitment of typically developing children (n = 242). The internal consistency mostly demonstrated good to excellent results for every measure. This study further recruited children with handwriting difficulties (n = 33) for testing the discriminative validity of the evaluation system. A series of two-way ANOVA tests was conducted to test the significance of the main effects of the groups (typical development and handwriting deficit) and grades (1, 2, and 3) and their interaction effects on the handwriting measures. All the measures showed significant differences between the two groups, indicating the discriminative validity for identifying handwriting deficits. Seven of twelve measures showed significant interaction effects, indicating the different trends across the grades between the two groups. Typically-developing children demonstrated ongoing progress from grade 1 to grade 3, suggesting a developmental trend during their early school age. Implications for motor development and clinical evaluation are discussed herein in relation to the five dimensions.

The effect of task complexity on handwriting kinetics

BACKGROUND.

Knowledge regarding the relationship between writing kinetics and the difference among writing tasks is limited.

PURPOSE.

This study examined the differences in handwriting performance when doing tasks with different levels of challenge from both temporal and kinetic perspectives among children in four different age groups.

METHOD.

The cross-sectional design introduced a force-acquisition pen to detect differences of pen grip and writing kinetics among 170 school-age children doing writing tasks at different difficulty levels. Data were obtained on the force information of the digits and pen tip and the kinetic parameters to examine the coordination-and-control mechanism between the digits and pen. Statistical analyzes were carried out to indicate the differences in writing performance among groups and tasks.

FINDINGS.

Statistical differences in the pen-grip forces, force fluctuation, and force ratio between grip and pen-tip forces were found when performing different writing tasks and among different age groups.

IMPLICATIONS.

The study provides an alternative method to explore how writing performance among school-age children can vary according to the difficulty of the writing tasks.

Comparison of the Properties of the Handwriting Speed Test (HST) and Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting (DASH): An Exploratory Study

BACKGROUND

Handwriting speed is an important component of students' ability to adequately express their ideas, knowledge and creativity in a timely and effective manner.

AIMS

Psychometric properties of the Handwriting Speed Test (HST) and Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting (DASH) and accuracy of the norms for identifying current Australian students with handwriting speed difficulties were examined.

METHODS

An exploratory, cross-sectional study was conducted involving students, with and without handwriting difficulties, in Years 3-12 (mean age: 12.0 yrs, SD = 3.0 yrs; range = 7 to 18 yrs) in New South Wales (NSW; Australia). Participants were recruited through occupational therapists and schools. Students completed the HST and all DASH subtests.

RESULTS

Thirty-two students with, and 139 students without, handwriting difficulties participated. Intra-rater and inter-rater reliability were found to be excellent; sensitivity was low and specificity high for the HST and DASH. No significant differences were found between test scores and normative data for students without handwriting difficulties (year/age groups with n > 10).

CONCLUSIONS

The HST and DASH are reliable assessments of handwriting speed. Further research is required into discriminant validity of the HST and DASH and need for updated norms.

Characterization of fine motor development: dynamic analysis of children's drawing movements

In this study, we investigated children's fine motor development by analyzing drawing trajectories, kinematics and kinetics. Straight lines drawing task and circles drawing task were performed by using a force sensitive tablet. Forty right-handed and Chinese mother-tongue students aged 6-12, attending classes from grade 1 to 5, were engaged in the experiment. Three spatial parameters, namely cumulative trace length, vector length of straight line and vertical diameter of circle were determined. Drawing duration, mean drawing velocity, and number of peaks in stroke velocity profile (NPV) were derived as kinematic parameters. Besides mean normal force, two kinetic indices were proposed: normalized force angle regulation (NFR) and variation of fine motor control (VFC) for circles drawing task. The maturation and automation of fine motor ability were reflected by increased drawing velocity, reduced drawing duration, NPV and NFR, with decreased VFC in circles drawing task. Grade and task main effects as well as significant correlations between age and parameters suggest that factors such as schooling, age and task should be considered in the assessment of fine motor skills. Compared with kinematic parameters, findings of NFR and VFC revealed that kinetics is another important perspective in the analysis of fine motor movement.

Signal-to-noise velocity peaks difference: a new method for evaluating the handwriting movement fluency in children with dysgraphia

This study evaluated handwriting movement dysfluency related to dysgraphia. A new variable, the Signal-to-Noise velocity peaks difference (SNvpd), was proposed to describe abnormal velocity fluctuations in cursive handwriting. This variable was compared to two variables most frequently used variables for assessing handwriting fluency. This comparison was carried out for three different groups, children with dysgraphia, proficient children, and adults, all of whom wrote the same single word. The adults were taken as the reference. Results revealed that, of the three variables studied, the SNvpd proved most efficient in discriminating children with dysgraphia, and that furthermore, it had the significant advantage of facilitating the localization of dysfluency peaks within a word. Our results also showed that the movement dysfluency of children with dysgraphia was specific to certain letters. In light of these results, we discuss the methodological and theoretical relevance of this new variable to the analysis of handwriting movement with the aim of characterizing dysgraphia.

Writing to dictation and handwriting performance among Chinese children with dyslexia: relationships with orthographic knowledge and perceptual-motor skills

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between writing to dictation, handwriting, orthographic, and perceptual-motor skills among Chinese children with dyslexia. A cross-sectional design was used. A total of 45 third graders with dyslexia were assessed. Results of stepwise multiple regression models showed that Chinese character naming was the only predictor associated with word dictation (β=.32); handwriting speed was related to deficits in rapid automatic naming (β=-.36) and saccadic efficiency (β=-.29), and visual-motor integration predicted both of the number of characters exceeded grid (β=-.41) and variability of character size (β=-.38). The findings provided support to a multi-stage working memory model of writing for explaining the possible underlying mechanism of writing to dictation and handwriting difficulties.

Validation of the Chinese Handwriting Analysis System (CHAS) for primary school students in Hong Kong

There are more children diagnosed with specific learning difficulties in recent years as people are more aware of these conditions. Diagnostic tool has been validated to screen out this condition from the population (SpLD test for Hong Kong children). However, for specific assessment on handwriting problem, there seems a lack of standardized and objective evaluation tool to look into the problems. The objective of this study was to validate the Chinese Handwriting Analysis System (CHAS), which is designed to measure both the process and production of handwriting. The construct validity, convergent validity, internal consistency and test-retest reliability of CHAS was analyzed using the data from 734 grade 1-6 students from 6 primary schools in Hong Kong. Principal Component Analysis revealed that measurements of CHAS loaded into 4 components which accounted for 77.73% of the variance. The correlation between the handwriting accuracy obtained from HAS and eyeballing was r=.73. Cronbach's alpha of all measurement items was .65. Except SD of writing time per character, all the measurement items regarding handwriting speed, handwriting accuracy and pen pressure showed good to excellent test-retest reliability (r=.72-.96), while measurement on the numbers of characters which exceeded grid showed moderate reliability (r=.48). Although there are still ergonomic, biomechanical or unspecified aspects which may not be determined by the system, the CHAS can definitely assist therapists in identifying primary school students with handwriting problems and implement interventions accordingly.

An electromyographic analysis of two handwriting grasp patterns

BACKGROUND

Handwriting is a fundamental skill needed for the development of daily-life activities during lifetime and can be performed using different forms to hold the writing object. In this study, we monitored the sEMG activity of trapezius, biceps brachii, extensor carpi radialis brevis and flexor digitorum superficialis during a handwriting task with two groups of subjects using different grasp patterns.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

Twenty-four university students (thirteen males and eleven females; mean age of 22.04±2.8years) were included in this study. We randomly invited 12 subjects that used the Dynamic Tripod grasp and 12 subjects that used the Static Tripod grasp.

RESULTS

The static tripod group showed statistically significant changes in the sEMG activity of trapezium and biceps brachii muscles during handwriting when compared to dynamic tripod group's subjects. No significant differences were found in extensor carpi radialis brevis and flexor digitorum superficialis activities among the two groups.

CONCLUSION

The findings in this study suggest an increased activity of proximal muscles among subjects using a transitional grasp, indicating potential higher energy expenditure and muscular harm with the maintenance of this motor pattern in handwriting tasks, especially during the progression in academic life.

An investigation of visual contour integration ability in relation to writing performance in primary school students

A previous study found a visual deficit in contour integration in English readers with dyslexia (Simmers & Bex, 2001). Visual contour integration may play an even more significant role in Chinese handwriting particularly due to its logographic presentation (Lam, Au, Leung, & Li-Tsang, 2011). The current study examined the relationship between children's performance in visual contour (VC) integration and Chinese handwriting. Twenty students from grade 3 to grade 6 were recruited (M=9.51, SD=1.02) from a mainstream primary school using the convenience sampling method. Ten students were identified by teachers as having handwriting problems, and the other 10 were typical students. Participants performed the VC tasks and their handwriting performance was assessed by a Chinese Handwriting Assessment Tool (CHAT) in a classroom setting. Correlation analyses revealed that VC accuracy was significantly and negatively correlated with on paper time and total writing duration. t-Test analyses revealed statistically significant differences in VC accuracy between students with typical and poor handwriting, with consistently better VC accuracy performance in all conditions in the typical handwriting group. The results may have important implications for interventions aiming at improving children's handwriting.

Chinese handwriting performance of primary school children with dyslexia

The aim of this study was to investigate the Chinese handwriting performance of typical children and children with dyslexia, and to examine whether speed and accuracy of handwriting could reliably discriminate these two groups of children. One hundred and thirty-seven children with dyslexia and 756 typical children were recruited from main stream primary schools for the study. They were requested to copy 90 Chinese characters using the Chinese Handwriting Assessment Tool (CHAT) jointly developed by a project team from two universities in Hong Kong. The process of handwriting was recorded and the stroke errors in writing were analyzed using the CHAT system. Results indicated that children with dyslexia wrote significantly slower, with greater average character size and variation in size (p<.05) than the typical children of same age group. They also wrote with significantly lower accuracy (p<.05). Commonly observed writing errors among the Dyslexic group were missing strokes and concatenated strokes. From the discriminant analysis, it was found that writing speed and accuracy were satisfactory discriminators that could discriminate students into the two groups, with reasonably good classification accuracy of over 70% for every grade. The results were discussed with theoretical implications in relation to fine motor skills, kinesthetic abilities, visual perceptual skills, and the demand of written tasks in school.