A review of handwriting research: Progress and prospects from 1980 to 1994

Educational Psychology Review, VoL 8, No. 1, 1996

A Review of Handwriting Research: Progress and Prospects from 1980 to 1994

Steve G r a h a m 1,z and N a o m i Weintraub 1

Contemporary handwriting research has focused on skilled performance, the developing capabilities of children, atypical development, the effectiveness of various letter forms, instructional techniques, and the construction and evaluation of assessment instruments. This paper critically reviews and synthesizes research conducted between 1980 and 1994 in each of these areas, providing suggestions for future research. Considerable progress was made during this time period in understanding the processes involved in handwriting control and development as well as in teaching students with handwriting difficuIties. In addition, advances in theory, experimental procedures, on-line recording devices, and computerized instmctional programs resulted in an increased Ievel of sophistication. Thus, the prospects for future research in this area are promising.

KEY WORDS: handwriting research; letter forms; instructional techniques; assessment instruments.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

In learning to write, children need to develop enough fluency so that the mechanics of producing text do not interfere with the process of composing. Having to allocate considerable attention to the mechanical demands of handwriting, for instance, may lead a writer to forget already developed intentions and plans or disrupt planning about the next unit of text to be written (Scardamalia, Bereiter, and Goelman, 1982). Difficulty

tUniversity of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. 2Correspondence should be directed to Steve Graham, College of Education, 1308 Benjamin Building, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-1121.

1040-726X/96/0300-0007509.50/0 © 1996 Plenum Publishing Corporation

8 Graham and Weintraub

with learning how to write quickly and legibly can also effect how long it takes students to complete written assignments, their facility at taking notes during lectures, how frequently they write, and their perceptions of their own writing capabilities (Graham, 1992). The quality of students' handwriting can further influence their grades on writing assignments, as teachers' judgments concerning the content of a paper are influenced by legibility (Briggs, 1970; Markham, 1976). Teachers, on the other hand, lose precious time trying to read papers that are illegible.

Since 1980, there has not been a comprehensive nor critical review of the handwriting literature. The last major review in this area was conducted by Peck, Askov, and Fairchild (1980) who examined research conducted during the 1970s. A similar review of research during the 1960s was completed by Askov, Otto, and Askov (1970). The current paper reviews research on handwriting conducted between 1980 and 1994 in order to draw implications for instruction and to suggest directions for future research.

CURRENT DIRECTIONS

As in other aspects of writing, an increase in research activity occurred in handwriting during the 1980s. This interest was fueled by researchers from a variety of disciplines, including education, experimental and clinical psychology, linguistics, neurology, and bio-engineering. Major programs of research emerged in Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Neth- erlands, Norway, United Kingdom, and the United States. Topics investigated ranged from graphology to instruction to the development of models designed to simulate the handwriting process.

At least five factors contributed to the increase in handwriting research during the 1980s and early 1990s. One, handwriting was increasingly used as a protocol for the study of basic issues in motor control by researchers interested in motor behavior in general (van Emmerick and Newell, 1989; Thomassen, Keuss, van Galen, and Grootveld, 1983). Two, technological advances in the computer processing of handwriting, including digitized tablets, made it possible to record and score handwriting samples and movements with increasing precision and reliability, making handwriting a more attractive area of study for researchers from a variety of disciplines (see Teulings and Maarse, 1984 for a discussion on methods for recording and processing handwriting movements by means of a computer-controlled digitizer). Three, a variety of theoretical models of handwriting (e.g., Ellis, 1982; Hollerbach, 1981; Margolin, 1984; Morasso and Sanguineti, 1993; van Galen, 1990) were developed, prompting additional inquiry and research. Four, concern about the handwriting of children with special needs resulted

A Review of Handwriting Research 9

in a sizable increase in both descriptive and instructional research with these populations. Fifth, the formation of the International Graphonomics Society (IGS) provided a forum through which handwriting researchers from around the world and in a variety of disciplines were able to discuss and share their work with interested others. To date, the IGS has held five conferences and has published the proceedings of those conferences both in journals (Thomassen et al., 1983; van Galen and Stelmach, 1993) and books (Kao, van Galen, and Hoosain, 1986; Plamondon, Seun, and Simner, 1989; Wann, Wing, and Sovik, 1991).

Two other notable trends in research during the 1980 to 1994 period included an increased emphasis on studying the process of handwriting and a decrease on instructional research with "regular" or normally achieving students. Interest in process was fueled by the cognitive revolution and by the development of information processing models of handwriting (e.g., ran Galen et al., 1989). The availability of the aforementioned technological advances in recording and scoring handwriting also made "on-line" analyses of dynamic processes such as velocity, duration, pressure, position, and so forth more feasible.

In contrast, the decreasing interest in researching the efficacy of specific instructional techniques for the general school population coincided with instructional trends, most notably process writing and whole language, that deemphasize form (handwriting, spelling, etc.) in writing instruction. These approaches rely on indirect rather than direct methods of instruction, and it is assumed that mechanical skills such as handwriting and spelling develop "naturally" if students are provided plenty of opportunities to read and write for real purposes (Graham and Harris, 1994a; Graham, 1992a). As the popularity of these approaches increased among teachers and educational researchers, particularly in English speaking countries, research on handwriting instruction became less fashionable.

L I T E R A T U R E S E A R C H P R O C E D U R E S

In this review, principle sources for locating primary research included the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), hand-searches of relevant journals as well as books and special issues of journals published under the auspices of the International Graphonomics Society, and the ref- erence lists of all obtained articles. The descriptor "handwriting" was used in the on-line search of ERIC from 1980 to 1994. The journals Acta Psy- chologica, Journal of Educational Research, Journal of ExperimentaI Educa- tion, Journal of Learning Disabilities, Learning Disability Quarterly, Perceptual


and Motor Skills, and Visible Language were also hand-searched during this period.

Reports included in the review examined the following topics: handwriting development, atypical development, letter forms, evaluation, and instructional techniques. The studies in each of these topic areas primarily involved preschool and/or school-aged children. We also included in the paper a section summarizing handwriting research conducted with adults. This research concentrated on examining the processes underlying skilled handwriting. It is analogous to the research conducted with Skilled and expert writers in the broader area of composition (e.g., Flower and Hayes, 1980). Research on how expert writers compose led to a richer and more complete understanding of the writing process, stimulating changes in how writing was taught to children in the general school program (Graves, 1983) as well as in special education (e.g., Graham and Harris, 1988). Although handwriting research conducted with adults has not yet influenced handwriting instruction in a similar manner, it has stimulated the development of more sophisticated models of the handwriting process as well as the creation and refinement of experimental tasks and assessment procedures. These theoretical and methodological advances are increasingly being applied in handwriting research with children (e.g., Meulenbroek and van Galen, 1990; Mojet, 1991).

Not included in this review were studies examining the utility or validity of data acquisition or processing procedures in digitized handwriting analysis (Maamari and Plamondon, 1986; Tappert, 1986). Forensic investigations of handwriting (Halder-Sinn, 1991) and studies of graphology (e.g., Wing, Watts, and Sharma, 1991) were not reviewed. Also excluded were reports examining the relationship between writing hand-posture and cere- bral lateralization of function (e.g., Weber and Bradshaw, 1981) and medi- cation trials where handwriting was used as a dependent variable (Whalen, Henker, and Finck, 1981). Finally, studies comparing compositions produced via handwriting and word processing were not included. Several recent reviews adequate ly survey this l i terature (cf. Bracey, 1993; Cochran-Smith, 1991).

SKILLED HANDWRITING

During this and the previous decade, research with adults generally focused on the psychological and psychophysiological conditions that un- derlie skilled handwriting. One of the more important constructs in this research is the concept of a motor prograrn that serves as a central representation for the execution of an ordered sequence of movements. Initially,


motor programs were viewed as sets of muscle instructions. This conceptualization, however, has evolved so that a motor program is currently viewed as an abstract, nonmuscle specific representation of a motor act (Stelmach and Teulings, 1983; ran Galen and Teulings; 1983).

One of the reasons for this change in conceptualization was the observation that the shape of a person's handwriting was strikingly similar when writing on a blackboard, signing a check, or writing with the writing arm constrained, even though the musculature involved was different (Stel- mach and Teulings, 1983). Research during the 1970s, using qualitative measures, supported these informal observations (e.g., Raibert, 1977), leading to the notion that a generalized representation guides writing patterns produced by different sets of muscles or effectors (i.e., hand, arm, foot, and so forth). For example, Merton (1972) found that writing samples produced by the fingers and wrist (hand) were similar in shape to samples written ten times larger, produced by the elbow and shoulder (arm). Similar results were reported by Raibert (1977) for the dominant hand, dominant arm with the wrist immobilized, nondominant hand, head with the pen gripped by the teeth, and leg with the pen taped to the foot.

For the most part, research during the 1980s and 1990s confirmed the earlier findings of overall shape similarity across different muscle effectors (Castiello and Stelmach, 1993; Wright, 1990, 1993). Nevertheless, the results of kinematic analyses of adults' handwriting via digitized tablets suggested that the motor program is not completely effector independent (Castiello and Stelmach, 1993; van Emmerick and Newell, 1989; Wright, 1990, 1993). For example, Wright (1990) found that there were differences in the fluency, stroke characteristics, and shape detail when writing with either the dominant or nondominant hand. It is interesting to note that such differences were not as striking when just the dominant hand and arm were compared (Wright, 1990, 1993).

In a unique experiment by Castiello and Stelmach (1993), a left- handed individual, who had learned to write with his right hand after losing his left-forearm in an accident and who then later returned to writing with his left hand after being fitted with a myoelectric arm, wrote his name and an equation using his left hand (the myoelectric arm), his right hand, and his left elbow (pen attached). These tasks were also completed by a normal, left-handed control subject. For the subject wearing the myoelectric arm, qualitative analyses of the handwriting product and kinematic analyses of handwriting movements revealed striking similarities between the three effectors tested. In contrast, only the overall shape of writing produced by the control subject was maintained across the three effectors. Differences across effectors were noted in the size as well as in the movement patterns of the control subject's writing.


The overall similarity in shape of adults' writing across different effectors in both the Castiello and Stelmach (1993) study and earlier investigations indicates that the motor program is common, to some degree, across different sets of muscles. However, differences in the kinematics of handwriting for the control subject in this study and the corresponding findings in previous studies suggest several additional possibilities including the possibility that (a) different effectors may be served by different motor programs, (b) a motor program contains little more than information on overall shape, or (c) some parameters of a motor program are more invariant than others. In any case, the performance of the subject with the myoelectric arm demonstrated that through practice a generalized capability to produce invariant writing patterns, independent of effectors, can be obtained. If practice does serve as a bridge between the motor program and effector independence this would account for the greater similarity in writing with the dominant hand and arm, reported by Wright (1990, 1993).

Components Of the Motor Program

A fundamental issue concerning the motor program for handwriting is determining how it is actually constructed. One way in which researchers have approached this question is by trying to identify the basic unit that comprises a motor program in handwriting. Because letters are often learned as a single unit, individual letters may be the basic element. It is also possible that single strokes, combinations of strokes, or even combinations of letters are the basic unit (Hulstijn and van Galen, 1983).

Several studies provide evidence that complete letters form the basic unit of the motor program. Hulstijn and van Galen (1983) reported that adding a letter to a sequence of letters increased the amount of time it took subjects to initiate the process of copying them. Reaction time, though, was not affected by the number of strokes within letters nor by changing the starting point for writing a symbol (e.g., starting at the bottom instead of the top). Thus, the interval between retrieving and executing the motor program (reaction or preparation time) was affected more by individual letters than by number of strokes or familiarity with the pattern for writing a symbol.

Teulings, Thomassen, and van Galen (1983) also found that complete letters affected reaction or preparation time, whereas number of strokes did not. In this study, reaction time for writing pairs of letters was not influenced by number of strokes within the pairs; it was, however, affected by letter differences. Writing a pair of identical letters was initiated faster (reaction time) than was writing a pair of different letters. In addition, the


reaction time for pairs of letters containing similar or dissimilar strokes was the same, providing additional evidence that letters, not strokes, are the basic unit of the motor program.

In contrast to the findings from these two studies, Teulings, Mullins, and Stelmach (1986) found that the elementary production unit differed depending upon the pattern of strokes the writer was asked to produce. The elusive nature of the basic production unit led these authors to con- clude that "there is no one, single unit of programming in handwriting; instead, the production unit may depend upon the form of the output" (p. 31). Consequently, it is not possible, at the present time, to draw any definitive conclusions regarding the "basic unit" of the motor program in handwriting.

A second approach for determining the parameters of the motor program is to identify those features of handwriting that are most invariant. For example, if the pattern of a specific feature of a letter or a stroke remains constant across replications, it is reasonable to assume that this feature is related to a parameter stored in the motor program. It is further assumed that features that are most invariant represent a higher-level representation in the motor program than features that are more noisy or variable (Teulings and Schomaker, 1993). Several studies have found that size of vertical strokes, especially downstrokes, are less variable than dynamic features such as stroke duration or peak force (Schomaker, Thomassen, and Teulings, 1989; Teulings, Thomassen, and van Galen, 1986; Teulings and Schomaker, 1993). These findings support current conceptualizations of the motor program that propose muscle-independent parameters (e.g., spatial features such as vertical stroke size) are specified before muscle- dependent parameters (e.g., dynamic features such as stroke duration or peak force). Furthermore, these findings and the research reviewed earlier on writing with different muscle effectors (Castiello and Stelmach, 1993; Wright, 1990, 1993) suggest that handwriting is generated in response to an underlying spatial pattern which is then translated into specific timing patterns.

A study by van Galen and Teulings (1983) provides further support for the proposition that there are separate stages in the handwriting process, and that letter form (and its allographic variations) is activated independently of scale factors such as size and slant. Galen and Teulings found that reaction or preparation time for writing the letter "h" was sequentially increased by reversing the execution pattern (retrieval of an abstract motor program), increasing size (setting parameters for the program), and changing the angle of vertical strokes relative to the baseline from normal to proclined to reclined to inverted (an anatomical factor in initiating the motor program).


Mult ip le Processes

Researchers have also shown that handwriting is affected by processes above the motoric level. Brown et al. (1989) found that text written quickly was more legible when the material was familiar. Thomassen, Tibosch, and Maarse (1989) reported that a person's habitual mode for producing letters was more likely to be maintained at different angles of rotation when writing in a letter vs. nonletter context. Orliaguet and Boe (1993) observed that writing words requiring the application of a grammatical rule (pluralization or conjugation) increased writing preparation and execution time. Zesiger, Mounoud, and Hauert (1993) indicated that words were written laster than psuedowords, and that frequent trigrams were written fastet than nonfre- quent trigrams. Van Galen, Meulenbroek, and Hylkema (1986) found word length affected both preparation and execution time; long words took longer to start, but production was speeded up after the first letter. Finally, van Galen (1990) reported that repeating the same syllable in a word shortened reaction or preparation time but increased writing time.

These studies demonstrate that handwriting cannot be understood independent of its connection to the linguistic aspects of writing or discourse production. Production processes involving semantic, syntactic, lexical, and phonological factors affect the execution and the production of the motor processes involved in handwriting. Researchers have also gathered evidence that more localized, contextual factors may further shape the handwriting process. The preceding letter and the connecting strokes between letters can affect the shape as well as the dynamic processes used to create the letter (Greer and Green, 1983; Thomassen and Schomaker, 1986; van Galen, Smyth, Meulenbroek, and Hylkema, 1989; van Galen et al., 1986; Wing, Nimmo-Smith, and Eldridge, 1983). For example, Thomassen and Schomaker (1986) reported that the preceding letter affects the timing factors (e.g., velocity) involved in producing the upcoming letter and, to a lesser extent, influences its size. In addition, the production of the target letter is influenced more by the letter that precedes it than by the one that follows it.

A fundamental concern in handwriting research is understanding how motoric and higher-order writing processes are structured. Do they occur simultaneously, or do they operate in a discrete and serial fashion? The study by van Galen and Teulings (1983), reviewed earlier, provided evidence that handwriting processes, at least at the motoric level, are organized sequentially and hierarchically. However, skilled writers can produce cursive script at a pace of six strokes per second, seemingly without pause (van Galen, 1990), suggesting that underlying processes overlap or occur simultaneously.


Research by van Galen and his colleagues examined if variations in process load, such as word length, letter complexity, or difficulty of strokes, produced variations in writing time during the execution of these demands and at specific points in advance of execution. Word length prolonged the time required to start a word (but speeded up execution after production of the first letter), letter length prolonged the writing time of the preceding letter, and motorically more complex connecting letter strokes prolonged the writing time of preceding strokes (van Galen et al., 1986). In a separate study, van Galen et al. (1989) reported that repetition of the same letter decreased the writing time of the preceding letters, whereas repetition of a stroke within a letter (i.e., "m") prolonged writing time during stroke execution proper. Finally, van Galen (1990) found that syllable repetition within a word prolonged the time required to start and write the word, whereas stroke repetition within a letter prolonged execution of the letter proper.

These studies show that processing demands of a lexical, phonological, contextual, and a motoric nature occurred at distinctive points in advance of executing these demands. For example, word-length effects on preparation were foreshadowed by the duration of the interval between words, whereas letter complexity effects were localized to immediately preceding letters. The outcomes were also consistent with a hierarchical ordering of components. The influence of word length and syllable difficulty were realized earlier than letter effects, which preceded effects due to stroke difficulty. The evidence further supports the prediction that the component processes operate in parallel. For instance, word and syllable effects extended across the production of the whole word and occurred conjointly with letter and stroke effects, which were realized at specific points within the word. In a similar but more localized manner, the preparation of an upcoming letter appeared to be processed concurrently with the execution of preceding letters, as evidenced by the effects of letter length and repetition on time to write preceding letters. Other studies have also shown an overlap between the processes involved in initiating an upcoming letter and executing preceding letters (Hulstijn and van Galen, 1983; Stelmach and Teulings, 1983; van Galen and Teulings, 1983). Thus, to return to our earlier question, the evidence indicates that handwriting control is characterized by both serial and parallel processing.

Although the studies reviewed so rar suggest a hierarchical arrangement, with higher-order stages influencing lower-order ones, a study by Meulenbroek and Thomassen (1993) illustrated that this process may not be completely unidirectional, at least in terms of the preparation and execution of the motor program. They found that adults generally attempted to select movements when copying acute and obtuse angles that allowed them to exploit the elasticity of muscles and tendons, a biomechanical prop-


erty of the motor system. Thus, elasticity influenced higher-order prepara- tory processes involved in copying geometric patterns.

It is also possible that lower-order processes involving motoric control affect higher-order processes in text production. For example, removing the mechanics of writing through dictation may result in an increase in how much an author writes (De La Paz and Graham, in press). Although it is not possible to disentangle the influence of handwriting and other mechanical skills, such as spelling in studies of dictation, the slowness of handwriting may be a contributing factor, especially for young children or persons with handwriting difficulties (Graham, 1990).

Visual Feedback

Writers typically look at what they write as they compose, suggesting that handwriting benefits flora vision (van Doorn and Keuss, 1993). Recent research has generally confirmed this observation, demonstrating that vision is an important, but not absolutely necessary, ingredient in handwriting control. When writing without vision, writing is slower as well as larger (van Doorn and Keuss, 1993; van Galen et al., 1989), more errors are made (Smyth and Silvers, 1987), alignment of words to the horizontal plane is more erratic (Smyth and Silvers, 1987), and habitual patterns for writing letters are simplified by reducing the number of pen lifts (Smyth, 1989). Lack of vision also makes it more difficult to accurately execute instructions to change the size of letters (Burton, Pick, and Holmes, 1990).

Although handwriting benefits from the availability of visual feedback, it is not clear how it is used. Although vision appears to be crucial in the spatial arrangement of words on the horizontal line, it may be available but not always used in producing letters or words in connected text (Smyth and Silvers, 1987). The role of vision in guiding the moment-to-moment movements involved in handwriting has further been questioned because visual feedback (as weil as kinaesthetic) is probably too slow to be effective at the speed adults typically write (Teulings and Schomaker, 1993). One important function that vision may play in handwriting control involves monitoring. For instance, van Galen et al. (1989) provided evidence that visual feedback provides a signal to working memory to remove any motor program that has already been executed. Additional research is needed to more fully explicate the role of vision in handwriting control, particularly with developing writers, as less ffequently practiced letters appear more vulnerable to writing without vision (van Doorn and Keuss, 1993).


Additionai Issues

Several other issues have been addressed by researchers interested in skilled handwriting. The pressure on the tip of the pen during writing has been studied extensively by Henry Kao and his colleagues. They found that in exeeuting drawing or writing patterns there was increasing variability in pressure (as weil as increasing pressure), peaking shortly before the movement terminates (Kao, 1983; Kao, Hong, and Wah, 1986). This finding was robust, occurring across geometrie figures and writing symbols, cursive Latin script and Chinese characters, and different modes (tracing, copying, and free hand) of handwriting produetion. They argued that this phenome- non reflects the demand for greater preeision or eontrol when the final part of the movement is about to be terminated.

It has also been reported that less pressure is exerted at the tip of the pen as the complexity of writing materials (Chinese charaeters or cursive Latin script) to be traced or copied increases (Kao and Cheuk-Ming, 1988; Kao et al., 1986; Shek, Kao, and Chau, 1986). These findings do not, however, appear to refiect a general pattern. Kao, Shek, and Lee (1983) found that the complexity of geometric figures did not influence pen pressure exerted during tracing, whereas pen pressure increased as the complexity of Roman letters increased during free writing.

Kao and his colleagues further investigated the effects of different modes of handwriting production on pen pressure. They hypothesized that handwriting pressure and variability would be greatest in tracing because it requires the most attentional demands, least in freewriting, and moderate when copying (Kao et al., 1986). Partial support for this premise was obtained in a study by Shek et al. (1986). It was found that adults exerted more pen pressure when tracing Chinese charaeters than when copying them. Kao et al. (1986), however, reported no differenee in average pen pressure when adults traced, eopied, or free-wrote English and Chinese figures. Furthermore, contrary to expectations, variability in pen pressure was highest during free writing and was lowest during tracing. Additional research is needed to resolve these conflicting findings and to investigate further the control processes involved in different modes of handwriting production.

Another issue addressed by researchers involves the effects of horizontal progression during writing on the formation of letters. Although Hol- lerbach (1981) claimed that the formation of eursive Latin script is independent or superimposed on the rightward progression of the pen along the writing line, subsequent research has failed to validate this claim (Maarse and Thomassen, 1983; Thomassen and Meulenbroek, 1993; Thomassen and Teulings, 1983), demonstrating mutual interactions between


the low-velocity rightward sweep of writing and the high-velocity processes of letter formation.

A final issue involves the role of time in controlling the size of handwriting. Several researchers have suggested that different sizes of the same letter (e.g., .33 cm vs. 1.00 cm) take the same amount of time to produce, and that differences in size are accomplished by varying how fast the letter is produced. In contrast, construction of letters differing in size but not shape (cursive "e" and 'T') are produced at the same speed, but the amount of time needed to produce each letter varies (e.g., Hollerbach, 1981; Wright, 1993). Whereas some researchers (Hollerbach, 1981; Stelmach and Teulings, 1983) provided support for the first proposition (size of writing and time of production are independent), others (Greer and Green, 1983; van Galen and Teulings, 1983; Wing, 1980; Wright, 1993) found that both speed and duration of production varied as a consequence of size. Similarly, Greer and Green (1983) and Wing (1980) found that the generation of letters differing in size but not shape (proposition two) were also realized by variations in both duration and speed of production. As a result, the special role of time in controlling these two types of changes in size has received, at best, weak and ambiguous support.

Summary

When watching an adult compose, it appears that cursive script is produced in a continuous and smooth flow of movement with little effort on the part of the writer. This seemingly simple skill, however, involves a complex interaction of motor and cognitive processes. During connected writing, the production of a single letter is often influenced by multiple factors including retrieving and executing the motor program, contextual effects due to the surrounding letters, and the more general processes involved in discourse production. Furthermore, the evidence reviewed in this section suggests that the processes underlying these factors have a linear as weil as parallel structure. Thus, the operation of these processes often overlap, but are also linear in the sense that lower-level processes cannot be activated until higher-order processes are specified. In the latter case, for example, the writer must first decide what word to use and what grapheme starts the word before a motor program can be retrieved from long-term memory.

Although considerable progress in understanding the nature of the motor program in handwriting has occurred, additional study is needed to more fully specify its components. Similarly, a more complete account of the processes underlying skilled handwriting awaits additional study con-


cerning the role of visual and kinesthetic feedback in handwriting control. Because research with skilled writers has mostly been limited to Latin cursive script (see Chau, Kao, and Chek, 1986 for a notable exception) focused on a limited range of tasks, and has orten involved a small number of participants, both replication as well as extension of current findings are important goals in future research.

HANDWRITING DEVELOPMENT

Although it is difficult to disentangle the factors responsible for developmental changes in handwriting, natural tendencies, culture, and education undoubtably influence the process (Thomassen and Teulings, 1983). The interplay of these factors can be readily observed in studies on the writing development of young children.

From Scribbles to Letter Forms: Ages 3-6

In a study conducted by Tolchinsky-Landsman and Levin (1985) in Is- rael, 42 children between the ages of 3.4 to 5.8 were asked to draw and then write four phrases. For the youngest children in this study--the 3- year-olds--there was little distinction between their writing and drawing. At this age, neither of these two types of productions included the figurative features of a realistic representation. In contrast, the 4-year-olds' drawing and writing were clearly distinguishable. Their writing, however, was composed of characters of mixed origin (Hebrew letters and numerals as well as Latin letters) or conventional Hebrew letters mostly unrelated to the utterance. Also, at 4 years of age, subordinate features of writing such as directionality (mostly left-to-right), constriction of writing size relative to drawing, and linearly organized units separated by regular blanks were common. The 5-year olds used almost all Hebrew letters (70% unrelated to the utterance). Ordinal features specific to Hebrew, such as writing from right to left, became more dominant.

Research by De Goes and Martlew (1983) in England also demonstrated a developmental progression from scribbling undifferentiated forms to eventually writing letters. They asked 34 children between the ages of 3 to 6 to write anything they wished (including their name), to write dictated phrases, and to copy and then rewrite from memory words pro- nouneed by the examiner. An analysis of the children's writing resulted in the identification of seven response levels: (1) marks or scribbles with no resemblance to the objects depicted; (2) pictorial representations for dic-


tated words and some letters reproduced on the copying task; (3) pictorial representations of dictated words and words rewritten from memory, and awkward reproductions of the letters on the copying task; (4) pictorial representation for dictated words, but letters when writing names and more legible letters produced on the copying and rewriting tasks; (5) words copied and rewritten easily, and letters generated that were generally unrelated to the sounds in the words to write names and dictated words; (6) similar response to previous level, but typical refusal to write dictated words on the grounds that they were unable to (agreed to draw them, however); and (7) identifiable words produced on all tasks.

Analysis of the children's writing by age (no reliability data provided) showed that the 3-year-olds mostly relied on scribbling and on pictorial representations (levels 1 and 2). The 4-years-olds also relied on pictorial representations, but about one-third of these children were beginning to make the distinction between drawing and writing (level 4). Although some of the 5 to 6 year olds still used pictographs, they were much more likely to distinguish between drawing and writing (levels 5 and 6), with one student producing identifiable words on all tasks (level 7). It is instructive to note that the investigators found that another group of children from a higher socioeconomic level reached the advanced levels at earlier ages.

In a study of the writing of 3- to 6-year-old children in France, Gom- bert and Fayol (1992) also found writing progressed from scribbling to re- fusals to write dictated text (level 6 in De Goes and Martlew, 1983), but reported few instances of pictorial representations in children's writing. Children in this study were asked to write and later draw dictated pairs of words and sets of sentences designed so that one member of the pair or set was phonologically included in the other. At 3 years of age, children's writing typically moved from scribbles to wavy lines. They were also beginning to acquire some of the superordinate features of writing, such as directionality and linearity. From 3 to 4 years of age, children's writing was characterized by strings of circles or psuedo-letters and by the increasing use of discrete units that varied in number with the size of the dictated text. At 4 years of age, children began to use letters in their writing, initially letters from their name. More advanced children, mostly 5-year-olds, varied the number of letters produced to match the phonological characteristics of the dictated text. Correspondence between sounds and letters were sometimes obtained. In addition, several of the older children, who were conscious of gaps in their knowledge, refused to write the dictated text.

Although differences between the De Goes and Martlew (1983) and the Gombert and Fayol (1992) investigations, concerning the role of pictorial representation in writing development, may be due to the experimental tasks employed or even to cultural differences, a study by Dyson


(1982) demonstrated that both writing and drawing are important ingredi- ents in young children's early writing efforts. She examined the relationship between the writing and drawing of live, 5-year-old American children as they worked at a writing center in a kindergarten classroom (reliability not reported). Less than one-quarter of the children's compositions involved only writing. Although it was slightly more common for children to use writing and drawing together in meaningful ways (29%), they were even more likely (48%) to intermingle unrelated writing and drawings on the same page. Thus, as often as not, these students' compositions combined writing and drawing in unconventional ways. They also frequently inter- changed the terms drawing and writing, particularly writing for drawing, when describing the composing act. This did not appear to be a consequence of being unable to distinguish writing from drawing, but probably represented overlapping definitions for the processes involved in the two acts (e.g., creating objects for others).

G r a m m a r of Action

Another line of research conducted with young children has focused on the systematic regularities underlying the production of letter forms. In a classic study, Goodnow and Levine (1973) observed that the copying of rectilinear designs followed specific principles. The term "grammar of action" was used to refer to these rules, which included the use of certain starting points (top, len), progression directions (downward, rightward), and strategies (avoiding pen-lifts, mooring further segments into existing ones).

Simner (1981, 1984) conducted a series of studies to assess the applicability of Goodnow and Levine's grammar of action for writing letters. In an initial investigation (Simner, 1981), 172 kindergarten through second grade children in Canada were asked to write the upper and lowercase letters and the numerals 1-9. Kindergarten children, who had not received any formal instruction, used the same stroke patterns for most letters and numerals and adhered to the starting (top, left) and progression (downward, rightward) rules. There were limits, however, to the applicability of Goodnow and Levine's rules to letter production, because letters that involve conflicts among rules were not resolved as expected. In addition, formal handwriting instruction in grades 1 and 2 had little effect on how children wrote letters, suggesting that established patterns are not easily modified. Consequently, any ineffective or inefficient letter formation hab- its learned at home, kindergarten, or preschool may be difficult to change.

In a subsequent study, Simner (1984) tested two specific predictions made by Goodnow (Goodnow and Levine, 1973; Lehman and Goodnow,


1975) concerning the grammar of action and reversals. First, Goodnow pro- posed that left- and right-handed children adhere to opposing motor rules and that, consequently, right-handed children should make more reversals having distinctive features facing left (e.g., d is in conflict with the rightward progression rule), whereas left-handers should more orten reverse right facing figures (e.g., b). Second, as right-handed children become older, there should be an increase in the number of reversals made with the letter "N," because these errors occur as a result of an occasional misapplication of the starting rule (top, left) followed by a continuous stroke ( i .e . , ) . Both the starting rules and the strategy of avoiding pen-lifts become stronger with age (Goodnow and Levine, 1973).

To test the first prediction, Simner (1984) asked 36 left-handed and an equal number of right-handed kindergarten children to write 41 poten- tially reversible letters and numerals. Simner found that there were no differences between left- and right-handers in number of reversals for d-type and b-type letters, and that d-type letters were reversed more orten than b-type letters. For the second prediction, 86 kindergarten through second grade right-handers copied the 41 letters. For both the letter "N" and the remaining 40 letters, the number of reversals progressively decreased from grade to grade. Neither of Goodnow's predictions, therefore, were supported in these investigations.

A study by Nihei (1983) also examined if specific rules apply to the production of figures and letters. He investigated the frequency with which 4- and 5-year-old Japanese children used fixed anchoring (second stroke starts where first stroke started) and fluid anchoring (continuous stroke) when copying figures. Younger children used fixed anchoring more frequently than older children, whereas fluid anchoring was more common with older children (reliability not reported). Similar results were found for writing the Hiragana letter "hi". Thus, Nihei (1983) and Simner (1981) identified several action rules that apply to the production of both letters and figures. Additional research is needed, however, to replicate these findings and to catalog more broadly which rules belong to a general class of writing-like behaviors and which rules are specific to handwriting.

Body Position, Arm Movements, and Pencil Grip

Advice on posture, writing arm placement, and pencil grip are common in instructional materials on the teaching of handwriting. Children are encouraged to sit in an upright position, leaning forward slightly, with both forearms resting lightly on the desk and the elbows extended slightly. The hand is turned so that it rests on the third and fourth fingers. The pen is


held between the thumb and the index finger, resting on the distal phalanx of the middle finger (tripod grip), about an ineh above the point (Graham and Miller, 1980). Is this the way that children really write? And perhaps more importantly, are variations in body movements and pencil grip related to writing performance?

A study by Blote, Zielstra, and Zoetewey (1987) sought to answer these questions. They examined the writing behavior of 55 right-handed children from the Netherlands, ages 5 to 6, as they repeatedly wrote their name and copied writing patterns such as circles and wavy lines. They found that there was considerable variation in ehildren's writing posture, writing movements, and pencil grip. Whereas about half of the children sat in an upright position, the other half assumed a forward leaning posture, with their head turned and lowered to a small distance from the table. Most children started with the writing forearm resting on the table (either at an oblique or right angle) and their hand on the writing line, but about half did not have their writing forearm and elbow still on the table at the end of the line. Approximately half of the children gripped their pencil less than an inch from the point, and a similar percentage used a grip other than the traditional tripod hold. Continuous patterns were more often drawn with extension of the wrist (including forearm rotation), whereas discrete patterns (e.g., name writing) showed less wrist extension, as most children moved their hand to the place where the next letter was to be written. Changes in the position of the body, shoulder, hand, arm, and grip were also observed during writing. Finally, the correlations between the children's written products and different indices of body movement and grip were low.

Sassoon, Nimmo-Smith, and Wing (1986) also found considerable variation in both the body posture and handwriting grips of 7-, 9-, and 15-year-old English children when copying sentences (reliability not reported). Slightly more than 60% of the children sat in an upright position, but only 30% used the dynamic tripod grip. Almost three-quarters of the children used a modified version of this grip. Furthermore, only one significant relationship between specific penhold features and speed of writing was obtained. When the index finger was nearer the point of pen, the 15- year-old students wrote faster.

Studies by Ziviani (Ziviani, 1983; Ziviani and Elkins, 1986) with chil- dreh in Australia, ages 7 to 14, yielded similar results. She found considerable variation in pencil grip when children copied sentences, centering around the number of fingers resting on the pencil shaft, opposition of thumb and finger on the pencil shaft, degree of index finger flexion, and degree of rotation of the writing arm (Ziviani, 1983). Nonetheless, these


characteristics had no impact on legibility or speed of students' writing from copy (Ziviani and Elkins, 1986).

As school-age children mature, they appear to make small modifications or refinements in how they hold writing instruments. Although most children continue to place the index finger on the side of the pencil shaft, there is a slight decline in this placement with maturity (Sassoon et al., 1986). The joint closest to end of the index finger is also less likely to be bowed inward (flexion greater than 90 degrees) as a result of the pressure exerted on the pencil shaft by this finger (Ziviani, 1982, 1983). Increasingly, contact between the middle finger and the pencil shaft becomes more sharply defined; it is either absent or the middle finger is usually placed underneath the pencil (Sassoon et al., 1986). Finally, the writing forearm is more likely to be rotated to the side, so that its angle of supination is greater than 45 degrees (Ziviani, 1982, 1983). These adjustments in pencil grip are most likely due to multiple factors, including the transition from manuscript to cursive, the demands for greater fluency, and a decrease in muscle tension with increasing handwriting control.

Although the studies reviewed here suggest that variations in handwriting grip do not influence how fast or clearly children write, the generality of this conclusion requires further testing. In each of the studies reviewed, students actually wrote very little. With longer and more natural samples, a different pattern of results might be obtained, especially in terms of the effects of fatigue (Ziviani and Elkins, 1986). Generality was also limited by the methods used to classify how writing instruments were held. With the exception of the study by Blote et al. (1987), only a "static" measure of grip was obtained: a photograph of the child's hand and arm during writing were analyzed to determine how writing instruments were held. Some children, however, change their grip while writing (Blote et al., 1987), suggesting that a static snapshot may not capture the complexities underlying students use of grip. It is further possible that grip infiuences the handwriting of specific subgroups of writers. In a study with adults, Athenes and Guiard (1991) found that the position of the forearm in relation to the writing paper affected the speed at which left-handed inverters and non-inverters wrote. None of the studies reviewed here analyzed the relationship between grip and handwriting performance for specific subgroups of writers such as left-handers.

Developmental Changes in the Handwriting Product

As children mature, the quality of their handwriting changes. Their initial style of handwriting, acquired at home and school, changes as they


become more fluent and develop their own personal style (Graham and Miller, 1980). The traditional means for studying this development involves the evaluation of handwriting at different points in time, using either a cross-sectional or longitudinal design.

A cross-sectional design was used by Ziviani and Elkins (1984) to study the handwriting products of 575 children in Australia. Students in grades 3 to 7 were asked to write symbols, letters, words, and connected text. The distance allowed between words (spacing) and the size of letters decreased gradually as children got older. Accuracy of letter formation and horizontal alignment also gradually improved from grades 2 through 6, but showed a slight decline during grade 7.

A slightly different pattern of development was reported in a cross- sectional study by Mojet (1991). In this investigation, 300 Dutch children in grades 2 through 6 copied in cursive style four sentences. On a composite measure of quality (ineluding indices on formation, alignment, size, and so forth), students made dramatic improvements from grades 2 to 3, reaching a plateau in grade 4, followed by steady (but not dramatic) improvements in grades 5 and 6. As in the study by Ziviani and Elkins (1984), the handwritten products of students in each succeeding grade typically improved; however, the rate of improvement was less constant.

The course of handwriting development during the elementary school years was also examined in a longitudinal study by Hamstra-Bletz and Blote (1990). Starting in grade 2, they followed 127 children from the Netherlands until they reached the end of grade 6. At the end of each school year, the participating students copied in cursive style sentences for a period of 5 minutes. They found that during the course of formal handwriting instruction (through grade 3), the quality of children's penmanship improved considerably. Letters and connections between letters became smoother; word and letter alignment improved; and letters became smaller (especially for boys). Once formal instruetion in handwriting stopped, however, a different pattern emerged. From grades 4 to 6, there was a decrease in legibility as the numbër of ambiguous letter forms increased, acute connections between joins and letters became more prominent, and the space between letters within words decreased. These changes were particularly prominent in many of the older girls who stopped joining either some or all of their letters in grades 5 and 6. The results from this study suggest that some children may benefit from periodic handwriting review once formal instruction has stopped.

In the Hamstra-Bletz and Blote (1990) study, two developmental trends were evident. First, children's writing changed during the primary grades from irregular and unsteady to smooth and steady. Second, their script became more personalized and varied during the upper-elementary


grades. Tarnopol and Feldman (1987) also found that children personalized their writing as they grew older. In a study of 160 girls attending a parochial school in the United States, Tarnopol and Feldman found that only 12% of the these students used cursive script in grade 12 vs. 48% in grade 9. The majority of students in both grades used either manuscript or a combination of cursive and manuscript.

In contrast to the studies reviewed so rar, several investigators failed to find a significant or reliable relationship between age and handwriting quality. Maeland and Karlisdottir (1991) used a 7 point scale to rate the overall legibility of 12 Norwegian children's handwriting during the third and sixth grades. At both points in time, students' handwriting received a quality rating of approximately 4. Similarly, Sovik and Arntzen (1991) used a 7-point scale to rate the overall accuracy of sentences and words produced by 12 Swedish children during third and sixth grade. Although words were written more accurately in the sixth grade, there were no differences in the accuracy of sentences at the two points in time. Both of these studies, however, involved a small number of participants, limiting the studies' power and generalizability.

In a series of cross-sectional studies, Tarnopol and Feldman (1987) also reported no differences in the handwriting quality of students in grades 2 and 5 in England (229 second graders, 247 fifth graders), the United States (44 second graders, 46 fifth graders), and Venezuela (169 second graders, 155 fifth graders). Handwriting quality was assessed with a scale with only 4 points (excellent, good, fair, and poor) and reliability data concerning scoring was not provided. It is possible, therefore, that the instrument was not sensitive nor reliable enough to detect differences in the handwriting of students in the two grades studied (Graham, 1986a).

Developmental Changes in Handwriting Processes

Increasingly, researchers are using "on-line" analyses of kinematic properties of writing via digitized tablets to chart the development of the processes underlying handwriting production. In a cross-sectional study by Meulenbroek and van Galen (1989), 75 children in the Netherlands in grades 2 to 6 copied 28 cursive letter pairs, containing a variety of connecting strokes (e.g., starting below, at, or above the baseline). Between grades 3 and 5, children became more efficient at writing strokes within letters. It took less time to write letters, and production became smoother or less dysfluent. Furthermore, between grades 4 and 5, the spatial variability of strokes within letters increased considerably, suggesting that students' handwriting became more personalized at this point.


Developmental trends were also found for the connecting strokes between letters. Between grades 2 and 5, students' connecting strokes progressively took less time to produce and their production became smoother. Grades 4 to 5 students also saw an increase in the spatial variability of the connecting strokes. Although students' efficiency in producing both within and between letter strokes improved with age, connecting strokes were motorically more demanding than within letter strokes. Connecting strokes took longer to produce, were more dysfluent, and exhibited greater spatial variability.

Similar developmental trends were reported in two other studies using psuedowords as stimulus items. First, in a cross-sectional study with 60 right-handed girls in Switzerland in grades 2 to 6, Zeisger et al. (1993) found that between grades 2 and 4 the first triagram (three letters) in psuedowords progressively took less time to write, was generated at a higher mean velocity, were produced more smoothly, and became shorter in length. From grades 4 to 6, writing time and smoothness remained constant, whereas length and corresponding velocity increased from grades 5 to 6. It is interesting to note, that the handwriting processes investigated continued to develop after grade 6, as there was a large gap in performance between the oldest children in the study and a control group of adults.

Second, a cross-sectional study by Mojet (1991), with 219 Dutch children in grades 1 to 6, described an initial period of dramatic handwriting growth, followed by a stabilization of performance thereafter. From grades 1 to 4, psuedowords progressively took less time to write, were produced more smoothly, and were generated with less pressure. At the same time, the size of letters decreased and the shape of letters became more regular. The only variable that increased significantly after grade 4 was handwriting pressure, but it returned to the grade 4 level in grade 6.

In contrast to these studies, in a cross-sectional investigation Meulen- broek and van Galen (1986) failed to find a significant relationship between age and the kinematic properties of handwriting (e.g., writing time, velocity, and so forth). Thirty children from the Netherlands in grades 1 through 3 were asked to copy three continuous and three discontinuous writing patterns. There were no differences between grades in terms of writing time, velocity, or size. Caution must be exercised, however, in generalizing these results to letter production for two reasons. First, the study involved a small number of participants, and more importantly, differences in the kinematic properties of producing patterns and words have been reported in the literature (Mojet, 1991).

We located only one longitudinal study that investigated the kinematic properties of writing. Sovik and Arntzen (1991) reported that the writing of 12 Swedish children became smoother or more rhythmic between grades

28 G r a h a m a n d W e i n t r a u b

~aable I. Mean Handwriting Speed in Letters/Minute

Hamstra-Beltz and Blote (1990) a Sassoon et al. (1986) c

Phelps et Ziviani Grade Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 al. (1985) b Usual Rapid (1984)d

2 24 25 25 46 55 - 3 35 34 39 25 - - 33 4 46 42 49 37 64 82 34 5 54 59 - 47 - - 38 6 66 - 57 - - 46 7 - - 62 - - 52 8 - - 72 - - - 9 . . . . . .

10 - - - 117 140 -

aLongitudinal study of three groups of 127 Dutch children attending public school; copied at usual rate sentences on unlined paper for 5 minutes with own writing instrument.

bCross-sectional study of 1365 children in the United States in either regular or special education resource rooms; copied in cursive style "at usual rate and as weil as can" a paragraph on unlined paper for 2 minutes with pencil.

«Cross-sectional study of 294 children in England attending private and public schools; copied at usual and fast rate on lined paper with a ball point pen, two unfamiliar sentences (practiced once prior to testing) and one familiar sentence, respectively.

dCross-sectional study of 575 children in Australia attending public school; copied as quickly as possible the phrase "cats and dogs" on lined paper for 2 minutes with a pencil.

3 and 6. Although the mean time for writing words and sentences decreased during this same time period, these changes were not large enough to be statistically significant. Additional longitudinal research, employing larger samples of students and sampling handwriting behavior more periodically, is needed in order to develop a clearer conceptualization of how the kinematic aspects of handwriting develop over time.

Handwriting Speed. In addition to using digitized tablets to measure the time required to produce handwriting elements ranging from letters to sentences, researchers have continued to use the stopwatch to assess the speed at which students write. Typically, this involves either recording the amount of time required to reproduce a specific text or the amount of text reproduced in a specific time. Table I presents the results from four studies that used such procedures to chart the development of handwriting speed. Although data were not available for each grade level, the overall findings from these studies suggest that handwriting speed develops gradually, be- coming faster at each succeeding grade level.

It should be noted that the mean handwriting speeds reported in the four studies presented in Table I vary considerably. For example, even though the third-grade students in the Ziviani (1984) study were asked to copy a simple phrase, "cats and dogs" as quickly as possible, their speed


of writing was almost one-half as fast as the third grade students in the study by Sassoon et al. (1986), where sentences were copied at the "usual rate." The observed variations in mean handwriting speed undoubtably re- flect differences in amount and type of previous handwriting and writing instruction as well as differences in the capabilities of the participating students (e.g., special needs students were included in the Phelps, Stempel, and Speck, 1985 study). Other possible contributing factors include differences in writing materials (paper and writing instrument), instructions for reproducing the sample, length of the sample to be copied, type of letters in the sample, familiarity of the sample, length of the writing session, and the time of year the sample was collected.

In contrast to the pattern of gradually developing capabilities observed in the studies presented in Table I, an investigation by Abbott and Bern- inger (1993) with 600 children in the United States found dramatic jumps and discontinuities in the development of handwriting speed. Whereas the number of lower-case manuscript letters that could be written correctly from memory in 15 seconds increased gradually in grades 1 to 3, a dramatic jump in production occurred at grade 4, followed by a return to the pattern of development observed in the first three grades. A similar pattern of gradual development in grades 1 through 3 was also observed in the speed at which students copied text correctly. There was a temporary decline, however, in students' text copying speed in grades 4 and 5, returning to grade 3 levels in grade 6. The reported findings for text copying speed, however, appear to be a consequence of the scoring criteria emptoyed (number of words copied correctly), as a rescoring of these data using the traditional index of number of letters written per minute revealed the typical pattern of gradual improvement from grade to grade (Graham, Abbott, and Bern- inger, 1994).

Two of the studies presented in Table 1 provided information on the variability of handwriting speed by grade level (Hamstra-Bletz and Blote, 1990; Phelps et aI., 1985). In both of these investigations, the range of individual differences was large. For instance, in the investigation by Phelps et al. (1985), the handwriting speed of third graders ranged from 3 to 64 (M = 25) and of eighth graders from 32 to 112 (M = 72). In addition, the study by Sassoon et al. (1986) demonstrated that students in grades 2, 4, and 10 were able to speed up by about 25% when asked to write as fast as possible. Similar results were found by Meulenbroek and van Galen (1986) who asked 30 Dutch children in grades 1 through 3 to copy writing patterns normally and as fast as possible.

Studies examining the correlation between handwriting speed and quality have yielded contradictory findings. Although Ziviani (1984) reported a positive correlation (r = .41) between speed and legibility in


grades 3 through 7, Sovik and Arntzen (1991) generally found low negative correlations between speed and handwriting accuracy at grades 3 and 6. Data from a longitudinal study by Blote and Hamstra-Bletz (1991) with 63 Dutch children in grades 2 through 6, however, suggest that the relationship between speed and form is not linear and is not the same at all grade levels. In grade 2, the slowest writers had better letter form and better spacing than faster writers, but their script was more irregular in terms of size, alignment, and so forth. At grade 3, fast and slow writers were similar in terms of letter form and spacing, but the script of fast writers was more regular. In the upper-grade levels, the fastest and slowest writers performed poorly with respect to both regularity and form.

Blote and Hamstra-Bletz (1991) also noted that the older students in their study increasingly made modifications in the form of handwriting they had been taught in grades 1 through 3. In a previous report (Hamstra-Bletz and Blote, 1990), they indicated that one change made by these students included simplifying script by eliminating clockwise movements. Parts of letters that required clockwise movement were written in counterclockwise ways. Hollerbach (1981) indicated writers make such modifications in order to increase speed and rhythmicity. He provided several examples of letters written by fast adult writers in which clockwise movements had been elimi- nated in favor of uniform counterclockwise movements.

If such modifications do in fact lead to an increase in handwriting speed, then patterns requiring frequent changes in rotational direction should take longer to produce than patterns with few rotational changes. Two studies conducted with children provide support for this proposition. In a study with 30 Dutch children in grades 1 through 3, Meulenbroek and van Galen (1986) found that students copied patterns with clockwise or counterclockwise movements faster than patterns involving alternating clockwise and counterclockwise movements. Similarly, Sovik and Arntzen (1991) reported that Swedish children wrote words mainly requiring counterclockwise movements faster than words mostly involving alternating clockwise and anticlockwise movements.

In addition to modifying script to produce more uniform counterclockwise movements, researchers have identified several other changes that presumably make students' writing more efficient and consequently laster. In a study involving 394 English school chfldren, Sassoon, Nimmo-Smith, and Wing (1989) found that, between 7 and 16 years of age, children decreas- ingly joined the letters "t" and "h" as they had been taught, connecting the curved base of the letter "t" to the letter "h." At the same time, an increase occurred in how often students connected these two letters using the crossbar of the "t." Sassoon et al. further found that the crossbar was more likely to be used as the connector when students were directed to


write fast. Although the authors interpreted the departure from the taught model for joining "th" and the increased use of the crossbar under speed conditions as evidence of improved efficiency, this single chänge probably pläys only ä small role in the more general optimization process. The oldest students in this study, for example, were more likely not to connect the two letters at all than to use the crossbar as a connector.

In a study involving 75 Dutch children in grades 2 through 6, Meulen- broek and van Galen (1990) observed that older children formed cursive letters using slightly curved lines, although younger students used relatively straight lines. Older children were also more likely than their younger peers to avoid strong curvature changes when writing the up-and down-going segments of cursive letters. These developmental changes were accompanied by an increase in how quickly and smoothly students wrote letters as they grew older. Thus, the optimization process appears to affect both younger and older students and warrants further investigation.

Experimental Studies of the Handwriting Process

As with adults, children's handwriting is influenced by multiple factors. Meulenbroek and ran Galen (1990), for instance, reported that the preparation or reaction time needed by Dutch children in grades 2 through 6 for writing cursive letters increased for letters with multiple allographs, letters easily confused with numbers, and reversible letters. On the other hand, frequently occurring letters and letters with dissimilar cursive and manuscript forms required less preparation time. A relationship was also found between letter complexity and speed of production. More complex letters were produced more slowly.

Above the motoric level, Zeisger et al. (1993) investigated the effects of lexicality and frequency of letter clusters on the writing speed of 60 right- handed girls (ages 8 to 12) in Switzerland. The students wrote words and psuedowords ending with frequent or infrequent trigrams. Neither trigram frequency nor word writing affected handwriting speed or smoothness.

Finally, Thomassen and Teulings (1983) examined the effects of horizontal progression on children's writing. Thirty Dutch children in grades 1, 3, and 5 repeatedly wrote a grapheme in an overlapping, stationary mode, and then continued the pattern in a rightward moving progression. Right- ward progression was not independent of grapheme production; it produced a decrease in writing velocity and affected up and down strokes differently.


Correlates of Skill Development in Handwriting

Gender. Research conducted during the 1980s and early 1990s generally confirmed earlier findings that girls are better handwriters than boys (Graham and Miller, 1980). The writing of girls tends to be better on measures of both overall handwriting quality and specific attributes such as letter formation (Blote and Hamstra-Bletz, 1991; Hamstra-Bletz and Blote, 1990; Massey, 1983; Tarnopol and Feldman, 1987; Ziviani and Elkins, 1984). The only studies that found no relationship between gender and the quality of the handwriting product involved either first grade participants (Lamme and Ayres, 1983) or the activity of copying individual letters (Hill, Gladden, Porter, and Cooper, 1982; Trap-Porter, Gladen, Hill, and Cooper, 1983). No studies were found where the handwriting of boys was superior to that of girls.

Are differences between the handwriting of boys and girls so pronounced that the gender of the writer can be identified by a blind rater? In a study by Spear (1989), science teachers claimed that they could dif- ferentiate between the written work of boys and girls. They indicated that the writing of girls was neater, larger, and more legible. The teachers' claim, however, was not tested empirically.

A more stringent test of this question was undertaken by Hartley (1991). He asked 7-and 8-year-old boys and girls in England to write a passage and then to recopy it to imitate the handwriting of the opposite sex. He found that other 7-and 8-year-olds were more accurate in identifying the gender of the writer for the original scripts (69%) than for the imitated ones (52%). Children were also more accurate in recognizing writers of their own sex for the original scripts only. Boys indicated they imitated the writing of girls by making their handwriting smaller and neater, whereas girls imitated boys by making their writing larger and less tidy. This study demonstrated that even young children can use handwriting to determine the gender of the writer. Prior research with adults (cf. Lester, Nosal, Purnell, and Quigley, 1979) yielded similar results.

In addition to differences in handwriting quality, girls tend to write faster than boys (Berninger and Fuller, 1992; Biemiller et al., 1993; Judd, Siders, Siders, and Atkins, 1986; Ziviani, 1984). In the only study that failed to find a significant relationship between gender and fluency (Hamstra- Bletz and Blote, 1990), the mean writing speed of girls was higher than that of boys at each grade level.

Gender-related differences in handwriting posture and grip, in contrast to quality and speed, are less pronounced. In a study with 55 right-handed Dutch children, 5 to 6 years of age, the only difference between the posture and handwriting grip of boys and girls was that girls were more likely to


bow the joint closest to the end of the index finger inward (Blote et al., 1987). Ziviani (1983) also found that older girls, ages 6 to 10, were more likely than boys to bow this joint inward, whereas boys were more likely to rest the writing forearm on its side so that the angle of supination was greater than 45 degrees. These findings suggest that young girls may be less relaxed during handwriting than boys, a speculation that requires veri- fication via additional research.

Girls' advantage in handwriting is likely the result of both biological and environmental circumstances. As Hartley (1991) noted, there is a sub- stantial literature documenting the more advanced development of fine- motor coordination in girls relative to boys. Cultural stereotypes, however, may also affect handwriting development, because girls may be expected to be neater than boys (Spear, 1989). Future research needs to more specifically address the effects of nature and nurture in the development of differences in the handwriting of male and female students.

Handedness. Previous studies yielded conflicting evidence concerning differences in the speed and quality of left- and right-handed writers (Gra- harn and Miller, 1980). More current research, however, generally supports the view that the legibility and fluency of these two groups are similar. No differences between left- and right-handed children and adults were found in terms of overall quality (Tarnopol and Feldman, 1987; Ziviani and Elkins, 1986) or speed (Suen, 1983; Ziviani, 1984). Furthermore, left- and right- handed first grade children made an equivalent number of reversals when writing commonly reversed letters or numbers (Simner, 1984). The only exception to these general findings was the observation by Suen (1983) that the letters of left-handed adults were less recognizable than those of their right-handed counterparts. The strength of this finding is attenuated by several factors though. First, reliability data for the dependent measure were not provided, even though each rater was required to assess 2340 letters. Second, actual differences between the two groups were small (even though statistically significant), and it is unclear if similar effects would have occurred if connected text, rather than individual letters, was assessed.

Not surprisingly, differences were found between left- and right-handers in how they positioned their paper when writing. Sassoon et aI. (1986) reported that left-handed English children typically placed the writing paper centrally or to the left and rotated it clockwise. Right-handed children generally placed their paper to the right and rotated it counterclockwise. From ages 7 to 15, these trends became more pronounced. The placements observed in this study are consistent with common instructional recommendations (Graham and Miller, 1980).

Athenes and Guiard (1991) also noted differences in paper position for 273 left- and right-handed French children in grades 1 to 5. When right-


handed children first learned to write, they set the page straight on the table. Toward the end of the primary grades, they rotated it counterclockwise. Left-handed girls and boys also started with the paper straight on the table, with girls eventually stanting the page to either the right or slightly to the left, whereas boys maintained the vertical position. The authors observed, that for the left-handed children, these positions were intermediate to the inverted and non-inverted hand postures in a sample of 32 adults.

Achievemen t . Current research suggests that elementary-age children with good handwriting skills tend to do well in other basic skills. Re- searchers have reported positive and significant correlations between handwriting fluency and reading speed (Beimiller et al., 1993), word attack skills (Berninger, Yates, Cartwright, Rutberg, Remy, and Abbott, 1992), spelling (Berninger et al., 1992; Biemiller et al., 1993), and speed of composing (Berninger and Fuller, 1992; Biemiller et al., 1993). Positive and significant correlations have also been found between handwriting quality and spelling (Maeland and Karlsdottir, 1991; Tarnopol and Feldman, 1987) as well as mathematics (Tarnopol and Feldman, 1987). It is important to note, however, that with the exception of the relationships between handwriting fluency and speed of reading and composing, correlations were modest, typically ranging between .20 and .40. The correlations between handwriting fluency and composing speed, in contrast, were relatively high, ranging from .47 to .83. Handwriting fluency and reading speed were moderately correlated; associations ranged from .33 to .66 in grades 2 through 6.

Conversely, a long-standing assumption in education is that handwriting difficulties in early childhood are indicative of subsequent academic problems. A series of studies by Simner (1982, 1986, 1989, 1991) provided evidence to support this proposition. In these studies, pre-kindergarten or kindergarten children in Canada were asked to write letters and numbers that are commonly reversed. The number of form errors made by the participating children was then correlated with later academic achievement. An error of form occurred when a child either added, deleted, or mis- aligned parts of a symbol.

In Simner's (1982) initial study, it was found that the number of errors in forming letters was significantly correlated with kindergarten teachers' evaluations of children's readiness for first grade and first grade teachers' evaluation of children's progress in reading, phonics, language, and mathematics. Left-right reversals, however, did not predict the teachers' subsequent evaluations. In a second study spanning three academic years, Simner (1986) again found that form errors committed by pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children were significantly correlated with class standing, end-of-the-year report card marks, and performance on a variety of standardized tests (measuring readiness, literacy, and mathematics). In the third


study covering 3 years, Simner (1989) reported that the form errors of pre- kindergarten children predicted end of first grade report card marks and first grade performance on standardized tests of reading and mathematics. In the final study spanning six academic years, Simner (1991) found that the form errors of kindergarten children predicted later academic success in reading and handwriting, but not in mathematics. Simner further found that kindergarten teachers' estimates concerning how often children committed errors of form predicted end of frst grade report card marks and first grade performance on standardized tests of reading and mathematics.

In Simner's studies, correlations between number of form errors and the criterion measures (e.g., teachers' evatuations) typically ranged from -.40 to -.70. Similar findings were reported by Moore and Rust (1989). They found correlations ranging from -.43 to -.48 between the form errors made by first grade children in the United States and their later academic achievement in sixth grade.

In each study, Simner also examined if form errors could be used to accurately identify which children later had difficulty learning. He found that form errors from kindergarten or preschool could typically be used to correctly identify 70-80% of children who later experienced academic difficulties (true positive), while failing to correctly identify 11-26% of these students (false positive). These findings suggest that form errors during early childhood can be a valuable tool in screening for children who are ù at-risk" academically.

Based upon his research, Simner (1990) developed The Printing Per- formance School Readiness Test, specifically designed to provide an early warning sign for later school failure. For practitioners who decide to use this instrument, two points should not be overlooked. First, in the studies conducted by Simner, high attrition rates were common, raising questions about the generalizability of the findings underlying this particular instrument. Second, because of the possible negative consequences of misclassi- fying children, errors of form as well as other measures of handwriting performance should be used only as part of a much broader screening, involving a variety of indices.

As we noted earlier, there is a strong correlation between young writers' handwriting speed and composing speed (Berninger and Fuller, 1992; Biemiller et al., 1993). Research assessing the relationship between handwriting and other composing skills is notably absent, however. For developing writers, their slow rate of production or the necessity of having to allocate considerable attention to the mechanical demands of handwriting may interfere with higher-order writing processes in at least live ways (Gra- harn, 1990; Scardamalia et al., 1982). One, their slow rate of handwriting may not be fast enough to keep up with their thoughts, leading them to


forget already developed ideas and intentions and interfering with content production. Two, having to switch attention from planning to the mechanical demands of writing may also lead the writer to forget already developed intentions and meanings. Three, simultaneously allocating attention to writing out a unit of text while trying to plan what to say next may further interfere with the planning process, affecting the complexity and coherence of content integration. Four, if attention is occupied with handwriting, there may be less opportunity for the writer to make expressions precisely fit intentions at the point of translation. Five, handwriting difficulties may affect students' attitudes concerning writing and their motivation and persistence during composing. As a result, additional research is needed to examine more systematically the relationship between handwriting and content generation, the planning process during writing, the coherence and quality of students' text, students' persistence when composing, and attitudes toward writing.

Although little is known about the effects of handwriting on the composing process, the impact of handwriting on the evaluation of the quality of writers' text has been a topic of interest since the 1920s. Research conducted between 1980 to 1994 generally confirmed previous findings that, regardless of content, higher scores are assigned to papers with handwriting of good quality (Graham and Miller, 1980). In studies where teachers or college students were asked to rate two or more versions of a paper differing only in handwriting quality, neatly written papers were assigned higher marks for writing quality than were papers of poorer penmanship (Briggs, 1980; Chase, 1986; Hughes, Keeling, and Tuck, 1983; Sweedler- Brown, 1992). These findings appear to be robust, because special training aimed at guarding against appearance bias did not mediate handwriting effects (Sweedler-Brown, 1992). Furthermore, handwriting effects may in- teract with other variables that affect the rater's expectations. Chase (1986) found that the effects of good or poor handwriting on assessments of writing quality depended on the race, gender, and the reported academic com- petence of the writer. Hughes et al. (1983), though, failed to find an interaction between handwriting and information about the achievement and intelligence of the writer, even though both of these variables separately affected the writing quality scores assigned by raters.

Massey (1983) used ä different approach to assess the effects of handwriting on ratings of composing quality. In the studies above by Briggs (1980), Chase (1986), Hughes, Keeling, and Tuck (1983), and Sweedler- Brown (1992), variability in handwriting was induced by the experimenters. Two or more versions of a fabrieated or real paper were created, designed to maximize differences in handwriting quality. Massey, in contrast, used essays written by 18-year-old English students on the advanced level ex-


aminations in English literature. He examined if the writing quality scores assigned by experienced scorers of the exam could be differentiated by an independent rating (done by Massey and a research assistant) involving the neatness of the essays. This was not the case, however, because the relationship between quality and neatness was nonsignificant. It should be noted that this finding did not negate the possibility of handwriting effects in the examiners' evaluation. The examiners, for instance, may have been influenced by handwriting criteria other than neatness when assigning marks to essays. It is also possible that handwriting effects were not found because there was little actual difference in the quality of the penmanship of the participating students. This cannot be determined from Massey's report, because an index of variability was not provided.

Intelligence. Two studies found small but significant correlations between handwriting and standardized measures of intelligence. For children in grades 1 through 3, Berninger et al. (1992) reported a correlation of .22 between handwriting speed and verbal IQ. McKay and Neale (1985) indicated that IQ was negatively correlated (-.37) to handwriting errors in their study with second grade children. As Harris (1960) noted three decades ago, intelligence is not a particularly good predictor of handwriting performance. His review of earlier research indicated that legibility was not significantly related to intelligence.

Motor, Visual, and Orthographic Skills. It is generally assumed that fine motor skills are critical in handwriting development. This assumption, though, has received weak and ambiguous support in the research literature. McKay and Neale (1985), for example, found that scores on the Bender-Gestalt test in the first grade were of little value in predicting handwriting errors in second grade. Once the variance due to IQ was accounted for, only one of the Bender error categories, lines for dots, added significantly to the prediction of handwriting errors, accounting for just 4% of the variance.

Similarly, Berninger et al. (1992) reported negative, nonsignificant correlations between scores on the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Inte- gration and the handwriting fluency of children in grades 1 through 3. They did, however, find small but significant correlations (ranging from .25 to .32) between handwriting flueney and children's finger function.

With regard to handwriting legibility, Tarnopol and Feldman (1987) found a small but significant correlation of .27 between visual-motor skills and the handwriting quality of children in second and fifth grade. Although Maeland and Karlsdottir (1991) also found a significant relationship between the overall handwriting quality of third grade children and scores on the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, they failed to find significant associations for both third and sixth grade children between legi-


bility and other fine motor measures, including tracing, finger control, and steadiness in holding a stylus. Conflicting results were reported in a study by Copley and Ziviani (1989) as well. They indicated that no significant relationship was found between the handwriting legibility of first grade children and scores on two measures of kinesthesis, the sense of movement and position. Scores on a third measure, likely assessing both kinesthesis and motor control, did distinguish between good and poor handwriters, however.

A study by Abbott and Berninger (1993) with 600 children in the United States in grades 1 through 6 indicated that language skills may be more important to handwriting development than fine motor skills. They analyzed the structural relationship between handwriting fluency and measures of fine-motor functioning (specifically finger function) as well as orthographic coding (representing a word in memory and then accessing specific units of information in that representation). Although the "path" between handwriting and the orthographic coding factor was significant at each grade level, this was not the case for the fine-motor factor. Fine motor skills, however, did contribute to the prediction of handwriting performance, but their contribution occurred indirectly through orthography. As the authors noted, "Handwriting is fundamentally a linguistic act--producing alphabet symbols on the motor output channel" (p. 503). Consequently, they argued that it was not surprising that a linguistic task involving the rapid coding of letters in written words made a larger contribution to the prediction of handwriting scores thän did fine motor skills. Additional research is needed to replicate this intriguing finding with handwriting quality and other fine motor measures.

Finally, it does not appear that children's handwriting performance can be reliably predicted on the basis of their visual perceptual skills. Yost and Lesiak (1980) did not find a significant correlation between the handwriting quality of first graders and their scores on the Developmental Test of Visual Perception. Likewise, Maeland and Karlsdottir (1991) indicated that the handwriting quality of sixth graders was not significantly related to their performance on the Southern California Figure-Ground visual perception test.

Summary

Handwriting development begins at an early age. Subordinate features of writing, such as directionality and linearity, start to appear between 3 and 4 years of age. The scribbles, wavy lines, psuedo-letters, and pictorial representations of these same children increasingly give way to the use of letters during writing. Between 4 and 5 years of age, letters are commonly found


in children's writing, orten occurring in conjunction with pictures. Although pictures remain a common staple of the writing scene during kindergarten, the compositions of some students at this age involve only letters.

The elementary school years are characterized by dramatic advance- ments in some areas, gradual evolving capabilities in others, and plateaus or even declines in development. In the early elementary grades, children's handwriting typically progresses from irregular and unsteady to smooth and consistent, resulting in striking changes in legibility or quality. In the upper elementary grades, however, improvement in writing quality is less dramatic, leveling off in some instances and declining in others. In contrast, children make small or minor modifications in how they hold the writing instrument during the elementary years, while steadily increasing the speed of their writing from year to year.

Although handwriting development undoubtably occurs beyond the elementary school years, studies examining this evolution have mainly been limited to observations involving fluency and handwriting grip. Additional research with older students is clearly needed to provide a better link between the growing understanding of the skilled handwriting of adults and the developing capabilities of children. We also encourage researchers to use longitudinal case studies, as was previously done in the area of language development, as an additional means of examining handwriting development. We suspect that such an analysis will greatly enrich and extend the current understanding of how handwriting grows and changes over time. For instance, the current contention that handwriting speed develops gradually is typically based on one observation of handwriting performance per year. More frequent observations may reveal a different pattern of development, one punctuated by spurts and plateaus. Furthermore, in the studies reviewed in this section, children exhibited considerable variability in handwriting performance. Additional research is needed to identify more completely the factors underlying this variability. Because traditional predictors, such as fine motor skills and intelligence, appear to account for only a small proportion of the variance in handwriting scores, researchers need to focus their attention on other plausible contributors, as was done in the Abbot and Berninger (1993) study.

ATYPICAL DEVELOPMENT

Recent estimates of handwriting difficulties among school-age children range from 12% to 21%, although estimates have been as high as 44% for children attending schools in urban areas (Alston, 1985; Rubin and Hen- derson, 1982). Furthermore, boys are more likely than girls to be identified


as having a handwriting problem (Hamstra-Bletz and Blote, 1993; Rubin and Henderson, 1982). These data must be interpreted cautiously, however, because they are primarily limited to a single country (England), constructed from teachers' estimates, and based on inadequate samples. More definitive information on the frequency of handwriting difficulties is needed and should be based on children's writing and clearly specified criteria.

The term dysgraphia is frequently used in the literature to refer to children who have a specific learning disability in handwriting (Sovik, Arn- tzen, and Thygesen, 1987a). The term itself does not explain the cause of handwriting difficulties, but refers to a serious handwriting problem that cannot be predicted on the basis of performance in other academic areas. Other researchers prefer the term poor writer, because "poor writer" does not focus on the discrepancy between handwriting and other academic skills. Still other investigators have concentrated on the handwriting of children with problems in other academic areas, such as reading (dyslexia) or learning in general (learning disabilities).

Although groups of children formed on the basis of these definitions are not identical, there is overlap between them. Typically, researchers ex- clude from their samples children with mental retardation or conditions known to cause handwriting difficulties. Thus, the children identified in most studies have "normal" intelligence and are free of obvious organic defects. Overlap in their academic achievement is also common. As Sandler, Watson, Footo, Levine, Coleman, and Hooper (1992) reported, children who have handwriting problems are likely to struggle in other academic areas. Like- wise, Maeland and Karlsdottir (1991) found that children classified as dysgraphic were also poor readers and spellers, whereas Tarnopol and Feldman (1987) noted that the poor writers in their study were correspondingly poor spellers. Although this does not mean that all children with learning problems have handwriting difficulties or that handwriting problems are always accompanied by other academic difficulties (see Rubin and Henderson, 1982; Sandler et al., 1992), the terms dysgraphic, dyslexic, learning disability, and poor writer are not mutually exclusive.

P o o r W r i t e r s

For the purposes of the present review, we examine separately the characteristics of students identified primarily on the basis of a handwriting problem (dysgraphia and poor writers) vs. a learning problem in reading or other areas (dyslexia and learning disabilities). Not surprisingly, the handwriting of students identified as dysgraphics or poor writers is not as legible as the writing of good handwriters. Differences in accuracy and qual-


ity have been found on letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs (Ham- stra-Bletz and Blote, 1993; Maeland and Karlsdottir, 1991; Rubin and Hen- derson, 1982; Sovik et al., 1987a; Sovik, Arntzen, and Thygesen, 1987b; Sovik, Maeland, and Karlsdottir, 1989; Tarnopol and Feldman, 1987; Wann and Kardirkamanathan, 1991).

A more detailed analysis of the specific attributes of the handwriting of poor writers and dysgraphics was undertaken in several studies. In an investigation involving 9- and 10-year-old English children, Rubin and Hen- derson (1982) found that poor writers had difficulty with all of the major attributes of handwriting quality (legibility, letter formation, size, slant, spacing, and alignment), but that general legibility and letter formation were the areas most affected. Interestingly, two studies found that the handwriting of dysgraphic children and poor writers was more variable than that of good handwriters. In a study with fourth and fifth grade children in Australia, Wann and Kardirkamanathan (1991) reported that poor writers had more discontinuities when writing letters than did good writers, and the orientation of major letter features were more variable for poor writers when the letter was written repeatedly. Similarly, in a longitudinal study with Dutch children from grades 2 to 6, Hamstra-Bletz and Blote (1993) found that the handwriting trace was less steady or regular for children with dysgraphia and was characterized by sudden changes in the direction and size of letters. Hamstra-Bletz and Blote also indicated that children with dysgraphia had more difficulty with letter formation and spacing, and were less likely than good handwriters to form their own personal style in the upper-elementary grades.

Congruent with the findings of Hamstra-Bletz and Blote (1993), on- line computer analyses by Sovik and his colleagues (Sovik et al., 1987a, b, 1989) showed that the writing of third grade children in Norway with dysgraphia was less smooth than the writing of their "normal" peers. Consis- tent differences in the amount of time these two groups spend when pausing as they write, though, have not been obtained. Although Sovik et al. (1987a) reported that children with dysgraphia spent more time pausing when writing words, this finding was not replicated in studies by Sovik et al. (1987b) with dysgraphics or by Wann and Jones (1986) with poor handwriters. Paradoxically, Wann and Jones (1986) found that when writing letters, poor writers in Australia paused more often and for longer periods of time than good writers. None of these process differences, however, appeared to have much effect on the overaU speed of poor writers or children with dysgraphia. They write letters, words, sentences, and passages as quickly as their peers without handwriting difficulties (Hamstra-Bletz and Blote, 1993; Rubin and Henderson, 1982; Sovik et al., 1987a, b, 1989; Wann and Jones, 1986). Nonetheless, in line with the observed variability in their


written products, there is a greater range of speeds among poor writers (Rubin and Henderson, 1982), and their speed of writing the same letter repeatedly fluctuates more widely than that of good handwriters (Wann and Jones, 1986).

Although clinicians have indicated that children with handwriting problems are more likely to establish anomalous handwriting grips (D. Duane, personal correspondence, 1994), this observation has not been widely investigated. Schneck (1991) found that first grade children in the United States who were classified as poor writers had a significantly lower score on a 5-point grip rating scale than did good handwriters. The actual differences, however, were small (.23 of a point) and a ceiling effect was evident, as the average scores for the two groups were 4.7 and 4.93. In another study in the United States, Goodgold (1983) found no differences between the handwriting scores of at-risk children with poor grip and posture and their "normal" kindergarten peers. The results from these studies, there- lore, are generally consistent with the nonsignificant association between grip and handwriting performance noted earlier in this review for children without handwriting difficulties. We believe that additional study of the handwriting grip of poor writers is warranted, though. The studies reviewed here were conducted with very young writers, and the effects of a maladap- tive grip may not be evident until greater demands are placed on children's legibility and speed.

Another variable that needs to be more fully addressed is the effects of poor handwriting skills on children's self-efficacy and attitudes toward writing. In a study with twelfth grade girls in the United States (Tarnopol and Feldman, 1987), all of the students who were classified as poor handwriters expressed an aversion for writing (e.g., "I hate everything about writing." and "I feel stupid and my writing looks stupid"). What people believe about their own writing capabilities influences how frequently and how well they write (Graham, Schwartz, and MacArthur, 1993).

Learning Disabi l i t ies

In comparison to normally achieving students, the handwriting profile of students with dyslexia or other learning disabilities is similar to that of students classified as dysgraphic or poor handwriters. Their handwriting of letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs is not as accurate or legible as their regular classmates (Johnson, 1989; Mojet, 1991; Martlew, 1992; Phelps and Stempel, 1991; Sandler et al., 1992; Sovik et al., 1987a, b). More detailed analysis of their handwritten products further reveals considerable variability in their writing. In a study with Dutch children in grades 3 through 6 (Mojet,


1991), the handwriting of students with learning disabilities was characterized as being large and irregular. Similarly, in the United States, Phelps and Stempel (1991) reported that the handwriting of children in grades 6 through 8 with dyslexia was distinguished by uneven alignment, spacing, and letter size. In addition to problems in maintaining stable parameters for size, spacing, and alignment, children with dyslexia or learning disabilities are also more likely than their normally achieving peers to malform, reverse, and transpose letters (Johnson, 1989; Phelps and Stempel, 1991).

Consistent with the observed variability in the geometrical descriptions of the handwriting of children with learning disabilities, on-line computer analysis by Sovik and his colleagues (Sovik et al., 1987a, b) revealed that the writing of third grade Norwegian children with dyslexia was less smooth than was the writing of their normally achieving peers. Nonetheless, children with learning disabilities and their regular classmates were not reliably distinguished on the basis of two other important process measures, pausing time and writing speed. Although studies by Mojet (1991) and Sovik et al. (1987a) reported that children with dyslexia spent more time pausing when writing words, these results were not replicated in other studies involving the production of both words and sentences (Martlew, 1992; Sovik et al., 1987b). Similarly, Mojet (1991) and Sovik et al. (1987a, b) found that children with dyslexia were slower than their normally achieving classmates when writing words, but these results were not duplicated with sentences or even other words (Martlew, 1992; Sovik et al., 1987a, b). Interestingly, Martlew (1992) reported that 10-year-old English children with dyslexia wrote words from dictation and copied at the same speeds, whereas normally achieving students adjusted their speed to the task at hand.

Despite the difficulties that children with learning disabilities have with handwriting, there is some evidence that they overemphasize the role of mechanics in the composing process. For example, in a study by Graham et al. (1993) in the United States, children with learning disabilities in grades 4, 5, 7, and 8 were more likely than their normally achieving classmates to attribute success or failure in composing to problems of form, such as neatness or spelling. Similarly, Fagen (1988) interviewed 52 adults with reading difficulties living in either prisons or mainstreamed society in the United States. These adults primarily viewed composing as a handwriting and spelling activity and believed that improvement in writing was mainly contingent upon additional instruction and practice with these skills.

Finally, two studies by Sovik and his colleagues (Sovik et al., 1987a, b) compared the writing of children with dyslexia and dysgraphia. In these studies, 24 dyslexic and 24 dysgraphic Norwegian children in third grade wrote 3-1etter and 6-1etter words as well as a sentence. Although the differences were not large, the handwriting of children with dysgraphia was not as


smooth or accurate as the writing of children with dyslexia. The children with dyslexia, however, were generally slower when writing words. The mean writing speeds on the sentence task were similarly aligned, but the differences were not large enough to be statistically significant. Thus, whereas the handwriting quality of both groups is low and their handwriting is more variable or less smooth than their regular classmates (see previous discussion), these traits are slightly more pronounced in children with dysgraphia. Children with dyslexia, in contrast, may take longer to execute the writing task, but slow speed is not a consistent feature of these students' writing.

Etiology

The cause of a handwriting difficulty can be identified in some cases, such as Parkinson's disease (Margolin and Wing, 1983; Stelmach and Teas- dale, 1989) or multiple sclerosis (Wellingham-Jones, 1991). For the large majority of persons with handwriting problems, particularly children, it is usually impossible, however, to identify with any certainty the underlying etiology. Undoubtably, some children have handwriting difficulties as a consequence of inadequate instruction (Graham and Miller, 1980). Others may simply represent the lower end of the normal range of variability. As noted earlier, teachers have identified as many as one in live students as having a handwriting problem (Alston, 1985). Still other students may not mature as quickly as others, resulting in a slower pace of handwriting development. It is also possible that some children's handwriting problems are a result of unidentified neurological difficulties, such as a central nervous system dysfunction. Injury or insult to the brain can result in a decline in motor performance, including handwriting control (cf. Anderson, Saver, Tranel, and Damasio, 1993; Margolin and Wing, 1983).

The study of difficulties in handwriting has been dominated by the assumed importance of perceptual and motor processes. Although the disrup- tion of one or more of these processes in acquired conditions such as Parkinson's disease (Margolin and Wing, 1983; Phillips, Stelmach, and Teas- dale, 1989) or brain injury (Margolin and Wing, 1983; Teasdale, Forget, Bard, Paillard, Fluery, and Lamarre, 1993) typically weakens handwriting control, the influence of these processes in the handwriting difficulties of children classified as poor handwriters, dysgraphics, or learning disabled is unclear. For instance, Sovik (1984) found a significant relationship between the handwriting accuracy of third grade Norwegian children with dysgraphia and their performance on a measure of figure-ground perception, but Maeland and Karlsdottir (1991) failed to replicate this finding with a group of sixth grade students with dysgraphia in the same country. Maeland and Karlsdottir fur-


ther reported that the handwriting quality of children with dysgraphia in grades 3 and 6 was not significantly correlated with a test of visual-motor performance and other indices of tracing, finger control, and steadiness in holding a stylus. In contrast, Tarnopol and Feldman (1987) reported that twelfth grade girls in the United States who were poor handwriters had low scores on a visual-motor measure, and Hagborg and Aiello-Coultier found a significant correlation between visual-motor performance and teachers' rating of handwriting quality for students with learning disabüities. Rubin and Hen- derson (1982), however, indicated that there was no difference between 9- and 10-year-olds in England who were classified as good or poor handwriters on a test of gross and fine-motor skills, but that the poor writers were not as adept in copying figures on the Bender Gestalt Test.

One motor skill that may play an important role in the development of handwriting difficulties for some children is kinesthetic perception, the sense of movement and position. Schneck (1991) found that first grade children in the United States with good kinesthetic finger awareness used a more mature handwriting grip than did students with poorer kinesthetic finger awareness. Ziviani, Hayes, and Chant (1990) indicated that kinesthesia added significantly to the prediction of letter formation and handwriting alignment of Australian children (ages 6 to 13) with spina bifida, a congenital anomaly, whereas a measure of visual perception and a test of motor planning did not. Lastly, Laszlo and Broderick (1991) reported that kinesthesia instruction had a positive effect on the handwriting of Australian students (ages 7 to 12) with handwriting difficulties and dyskinesthesia.

In order to better understand problems in handwriting, more attention needs to be directed at identifying the components of the motor program responsible for production difficulties. For example, in a study of the handwriting of adults with Parkinson's disease (Phillips et al., 1989), difficulty in controlling the size of letters was not due to a disorder of the overall motor program but to a problem in setting the parameters for the program, specifically, generating adequate stroke velocities.

van Galen, Portier, Smits-Engelsman, and Schomaker (1993) attempted a similar type of analysis with 24 good and 24 poor handwriters in grades 2 through 4 in the Netherlands. On the basis of observations by Wann and Jones (1986) and Mojet (1991) that poor handwriters' writing is more variable than good handwriters, van Galen et aI. hypothesized that poor handwriting reflects a failure of the motor system to keep the inherent and natural degree of variation of motor movement or "neuromotor noise" within appropriate bounds. To test this prediction, they examined if the writing of poor handwriters was characterized by more noisy velocity profiles, especially when the demands for accuracy were increased. They also examined if particular components of the handwriting process were more


involved than others by varying task demands at three specific psychomotor stages in the handwriting process: allograph retrieval (repetitious scribbling vs. letter production), parameter setting (3 mm vs. 6 mm height), and muscle initiation (spatial accuracy constraints indicated by shaded areas).

As predicted, the velocity profiles of poor handwriters were more variable or noisy than those of good handwriters, and poor handwriters were less successful in inhibiting velocity variability when accuracy demands increased (muscle initiation level). Differences between good and poor handwriters, though, were not observed at the allograph retrieval or parameter setting levels. In addition, poor handwriters used a fastet and less refined movement strategy. Their writing was characterized by higher movement velocities and longer writing trajectories. Older poor writers produced even longer strokes than did younger writers, whereas the opposite trend was noted for good handwriters. Thus, difficulties in inhibiting the noisy characteristics of the motor system and in applying appropriate biomechanical strategies at the muscle initiation level discriminated between good and poor handwriting, and may have been responsible for the cruder movement style of the poor handwriters. Additional studies of this nature would do rauch to increase the understanding of handwriting problems.

Summary

Although the actual prevalance of handwriting difficulties has not been adequately established, it appears that handwriting problems are fairly common among school-age children, especially among students who struggle academically. Additional research is needed to provide a more complete picture of the causes, extent, and consequences of handwriting difficulties. It is particularly important that researchers make greater use of the theoretical and technological advances that have occurred in recent years. Stud- ies such as the one conducted by van Galen et al. (1993) have the potential to greatly increase our understanding of atypical handwriting development.

EVALUATION PROCEDURES

In this section, we examine advances in the assessment of children's handwriting that have occurred during the 1980 to 1994 period. This in- cludes a review of research on new handwriting scales, checklists and instruments, as weil as a review of research on the structure of handwriting.


Handwriting Scales and Checklists

Test of Legible Handwriting (TOLH). One of the new handwriting instruments published during the 1980 to 1994 period was the TOLH (Larsen and Hammill, 1989). This test measures the legibility of children's handwriting, grades 2 through 12. Samples of students' writing (in response to a picture, from schoolwork, and so forth) are matched as closely as possible to a set of graded samples with scores ranging from 1 to 9. Three different sets of graded samples are available: one for manuscript writing, another for perpendicular or rightward slanted cursive writing, and a final one for cursive writing slanted to the left. In addition to a standard score and per- centile rank for legibility, a protocol is included for completing an informal analysis of handwriting errors.

The inclusion of separate scoring scales and the collection of multiple samples are noteworthy aspects of the TOLH. Nevertheless, additional data are needed concerning the reliability and validity of the instrument (Gra- harn, 1992b). Interrater reliability was obtained by having members of the publisher's research department score 70 handwriting samples. The obtained reliability coefficient was high (.95), but it is not clear if normal users of the scale would be equally reliable. In a study by Graham, Boyer- Schick, and Tippets (1989), for example, examiners who received only the training procedures incorporated in an earlier version of the scale, the Handwriting subtest from the Test of Written Language (TOWL, Hammill and Larsen, 1983), were unable to reliably store handwriting samples generated by students with learning difficulties.

Although the authors conducted several studies that support the validity of the TOLH, these studies typically involved small numbers of subjects or handwriting samples. Of equal importance, the data that are presented provide little insight into what the test actually measures. A study of the earlier version of the scale in the TOWL showed that letter formation, spacing, and neatness accounted for approximately two-thirds of the variance in the handwriting scores of students with learning problems (Gra- harn et al., 1989). More studies of this nature are needed to obtain a clearer understanding of the handwriting attributes measured by the TOLH.

Children's Handwriting Evaluation Scale (CHES). The CHES (Phelps et al., 1985) was designed to measure the fluency and quality of children's cursive handwriting, grades 3 through 8. A sample of students' writing is obtained by asking them to copy a short story containing all of the letters of the alphabet. Fluency is measured by converting the number of letters copied in a 2-minute period to a 5-point score (very poor to very good) based on the normalized distribution of the standardization sample. A quality score is obtained by assigning points for letter formation, slant, rhythm,


spacing, or general appearance when specific criteria are met, resulting in a 5-point scale.

The reliability of the scale was established by having two of the authors as well as language therapists and teachers independently score and rescore 150 papers. Intrarater reliability coefficients ranged from .64 to .82, whereas interrater reliability ranged from .88 to .95. Unfortunately, data on the validity of the instrument is notably lacking. Another concern involves the standardization sample. Although the authors are to be commended for including students with special needs in their sample, it is not clear if these students are overrepresented in the standardization sample. As we noted earlier, the fluency norms provided by Phelps et al. (1985) are appreciably lower than those observed in other investigations (see Table I). We also question whether an instrument that scores handwriting on a 5-point scale (or 9 in the case of the TOLH) is sufficiently precise for monitoring gradual handwriting improvement. Such an instrument is probably best used as a screening device for identifying children in need of instructional assistance (Graham, 1986a).

Phelps and Stempel (1991) conducted a series of studies examining the validity of a 76-item projective checklist included as part of the instrument. In an initial study, none of the 76 items significantly differentiated between the writing of normal and dyslexic students when scored by three certified graphologists. In a follow-up study, the graphologists scored the handwriting samples of normal and dyslexic children using the 23 most promising items, and then determined the classification of the writer. Whereas only 5% of the normal sample was classified as dyslexic (false-positive rate), 27% of the dyslexics were classified as normal (false-negative rate). In a subsequent study, teachers used either their own judgment or the 23 item scale to determine the classification of the writer. Teacher accuracy was 95% when determining if the writer was normal or severely dyslexic. Accuracy for mild and moderate dyslexia was rauch lower, however. Use of the 23-item scale did not improve teachers' success in determining the writer's classification.

Phelps and Stempel (1988) further developed a manuscript version of the CHES for grades 1 and 2. It is similar to the cursive version of the scale, except students copy only two sentences onto unlined paper. In- trarater reliability for the scale ranged from .65 to .81, and interrater reliability ranged from .85 to .93. As with the cursive version of the instrument, data on the validity of the scale is notably absent.

The Handwriting Checklist. The Handwriting Checklist (Alston, 1981) consists of 23 items and was designed to help teachers identify particular handwriting difficulties in students of all ages. Sample items include: '~kre ascenders adequate? Are rounded letters adequately rounded? Is the spacing between letters appropriate? Are bis letters free from reversals?"


Alston (1983) examined the reliability and validity of the scale using compositions written by 100 students in the primary grades in England. Five former teachers scored and rescored the writing samples using a 7- point holistic handwriting scale, and then on the following day scored and rescored the papers using 20 of the 23 items on the checklist. With the exception of orte teacher, intrarater reliability coefficients on the checklist ranged from .92 to .98. Interrater reliabilities between all five teachers were comparable, ranging from .63 to .82. Concurrent validity coefficients between the holistic rating and the checklist scores were high (.58 to .86), but may have been inflated because the assessments were completed on successive days. Alston also noted that only 13 of the 20 items made a significant contribution to legibility, and he recommended that the scale be further refined. As with the other instruments reviewed in this section, additional research on validity and reliability are needed.

Concise Evaluation Scale for Children's Handwriting (BHK--Dutch Translation). The BHK (Hamstra-Bletz, De Bie, and De Binker, 1987) was developed as a screening instrument for the early detection of dysgraphic writing; norms are available for grades 2 and 3. A sample of writing is obtained by asking students to copy for 5 minutes a standard text presented on a card. The first live sentences are composed of single syllable words at the first grade level. The reading level of subsequent sentences becomes progressively more difficult. The handwriting sample is assessed according to 13 items that measure deviations from conventional standards. A score ranging from 1 to 6 is used to score two of the items ("writing is too large" and "widening of the left hand margin") and is based on the full handwriting sample. Only the first live sentences are used to score the rest of the items. Each sentence receives a score of 1 for each item present (e.g., ambiguous letter forms). Writing speed is measured by counting the total number of letters written in 5 minutes.

Of the instruments reviewed in this section, the BHK is the most thor- oughly researched. Interrater reliabilities for the overall score range from .71 to .89, and percent of agreement for individual items typically exceeds 80% (Hamstra-Bletz and Blote, 1990, 1993; Hamstra-Bletz et al., 1987). Scores on the BHK are highly correlated (.78) to teachers' ratings of handwriting quality. The test is sensitive to developmental changes during the elementary school years (Blote and Hamstra-Bletz, 1991; Hamstra-Bletz and Blote, 1990, 1993). Stylistic preferences, regularity and steadiness of the writing trace, and letter form and word spacing account for approximately 50% of the variance in BHK scores. These factors are stable from grades 2 through 6 (Blote and Hamstra-Bletz, 1991). The scale is also sensitive to differences in the handwriting of children with and without dysgraphia


(Hamstra-Bletz and Blote, 1993), supporting the authors' claim that the test is a suitable sereening instrument for deteeting handwriting difficulties.

Ratings and Correct/Incorrect Measurement Procedures

During the 1980 to 1994 period, researchers continued to study the applicability of rating systems and correct/incorrect assessment procedures in handwriting. Ratings generally involve scoring a sample of handwriting via a Likert-type scale on the basis of either a single overall trait (holistic) or multiple traits (analytic); representative examples of specific scores are often provided to guide the examiner and to ostensibly increase reliability.

Correct/incorrect scoring procedures typically use transparent overlays to assess topographic features such as shape and/or descriptive criteria to determine if specified standards of performance are met. In reviewing the initial research on these techniques, Graham (1982) noted that correct/incorrect techniques were highly reliable; reported interrater reliability coefficients ranged from .86 to .97. Although rating systems also demonstrated adequate reliability, the interrater reliability coefficients reported in the literature were more variable, ranging from .69 to .98. Evidence on the validity and utility of these instruments was virtually nonexistent. Predictably, research during the 1980 to 1994 period focused on these issues.

One important question addressed by researchers involves the sensitivity of these instruments to changes in handwriting performance. Collins, Baer, Walls, and Jackson (1980) examined this issue in a series of studies where correct/incorrect procedures were compared to other handwriting measures. In the first experiment, they found that rank ordering samples of the handwriting of a patient recovering from a stroke--as he was receiving instruction on this skill--was better for detecting gradual handwriting improvements than was scoring handwriting as correct or incorrect according to eight descriptive criteria. In the second study, the eight descriptive criteria used in the first experiment were also less effective in detecting gradual improvement in college students' writing with their nonpreferred hand than was a less rigid criterion-scoring procedure assessing overall appearance as weil as legibility and quality. In the final experiment, the criterion-scoring procedure and a simpler 5-point holistic rating scale were equally effective in charting improvements in the handwriting of the Students participating in the second study. Overall, these data support the use of scoring procedures, such as ratings, thät allow evaluative judgments in assessing handwriting progress. The use of correct/incorrect procedures containing stringent or rigid scoring criteria, however, was not especially sensitive in detecting subtle changes in performance.


Although correct/incorrect procedures may not be sensitive enough to chart adequately gradual improvements in handwriting control, they may be overly sensitive to differences in handwriting style. These procedures require that handwriting conform to specific standards that may be difficult to emulate precisely without considerable stimulus control. When using a transparent overlay to assess the shape of a letter, for example, the examiner typically determines if the target letter fits within a 1- to 3-mm wide outline of the letter (Graham, 1982). If the writer adds a little flourish at the end of the letter or writes it a little larger than the standard, it is scored as incorrect. As a result, when overlays are used to assess letter shape, the writer is usually provided with models of the letters to be written and specific constraints or boundaries concerning the size of letters, limiting the general utility of the procedure.

A study by Sims and Weisberg (1984) provided an empirical demonstration of the oversensitivity of correct/incorrect procedures. In this experiment, 18 second graders in the United States wrote letters under conditions involving decreasing levels of stimulus cuing. When using transparent overlays to assess letter strokes as correct/incorrect, scores declined as stimulus control was reduced. Tracing (dot to dot) produced higher scores than copying using a start ball prompt with and without directional cuing, and the two start ball conditions yielded higher scores than copying with only a horizontal space prompt. No differences, however, were found in stimulus cuing conditions when the legibility of letters were evaluated by teachers using a 7-point rating scale. Thus, with the transparent overlays, scores differed depending on how rauch assistance students received in emulating the topographical model, even though there appeared to be no discernable differences in the legibility of responses as measured by teachers' evaluations.

One reason why the two scoring procedures yielded different results involved the size of the letters produced during the different cuing conditions. Letters produced with only a horizontal prompt as a guide were smaller (2 to 2.6 mm) than letters produced during the other three conditions. Although a small reduction in size did not affect teachers' subjective evaluations, this did influence the correct/incorrect scores because transparent overlays were intolerant of such deviations. Scoring handwriting on the basis of a topographical model or stringent criteria may simply not be flexible enough to allow for personal style without penalizing the writer.

The finding that the two measures were affected differently by letter height raises the possibility that rating scales and correct/incorrect procedures measure different aspects of handwriting performance, even when they are designed for the same purpose. In an initial pilot study, Sims and Weisberg (1984) found a correlation of -.02 between the letter scores of four preschoolers obtained via transparent overlays and a 5-point legibility


rating scale. The correlations between overlay and rating scores in the study with the second graders, however, ranged from .35 to .62 for the four stimulus cuing conditions, suggesting that there was some overlap in what the two measures assessed.

Other studies have also reported that rating and correct/incorrect procedures designed to measure the same or similar constructs sample a common factor. In a study involving 575 Australian children in grades 3 to 7, Ziviani and Elkins (1984) obtained correlations, ranging from .52 to .71, between a rating of letter formation and descriptive criteria for scoring letter formation in symbols, letters, words, and sentences. For 44 children in the United States in grades 3 and 5, Graham (1986b) found a moderate degree of agreement (.26 to .40) between holistic measures of letter formation and a correct/incorrect procedure using transparent overlays and descriptive criteria. AI- though it appears that a common underlying trait is captured by these two types of evaluative procedures, the obtained correlations were not of sufficient magnitude to suggest that they ässess exactly the same attributes.

Another important desideratum in examining the validity of rating and correct/incorrect procedures is the extent to which they are coherently related to other criterion variables. In a study by Graham (1986b), four cur- Sive letters were written by 44 third and fifth grade children and scored using a holistic rating system with model letters to illustrate specific scores, a holistic rating system without model letters, and a correct/incorrect procedure using transparent overlays and descriptive criteria. The two holistic procedures were significantly correlated to measures of handwriting speed and general handwriting quality as measured by the Zaner-Bloser Evaluation Scales. The correct/incorrect procedure was not. The correlations for the two holistic measures and the Zaner-Bloser Evaluation Scales, however, were small (ranging between .27 and .36), and none of the three target measures were significantly related to teachers' judgments concerning the quality of the participating students' handwriting.

Valid measures of handwriting should also discriminate between groups that are known to differ in their level of mastery. Because both gender and experience are related to handwriting performance (see section on handwriting development), a valid measure should be sensitive to differences along these dimensions. In the above study by Graham (1986b), scores for the two holistic measures and the correct/incorrect procedure did not mean- ingfully discriminate between older and younger students or girls and boys.

Consistent with previous findings reported in the review by Graham (1982), correct/incorrect procedures continued to be highly reliable during the 1980 to 1994 period; reported interrater reliabilities ranged from .78 to .96 (Collins et al., 1980; Graham, 1986b; Sims and Weisberg, 1984). The reliability of rating systems also continued to be more variable, ranging


from .55 to .91 (Collins et al., 1980; Graham, 1986b; Sims and Weisberg, 1984). Difficulties in obtaining reliability with both types of procedures, however, were reported in studies by Collins et al. (1980) and Graham (1986b). Teachers in the study by Graham (1985), for instance, had reser- vations concerning the reliability of both rating and correct/incorrect procedures, indicating that they would not use either in an applied setting.

In summary, neither rating nor correct/incorrect procedures satisfy all of the basic criteria commonly used to validate an instrument. Although correct/incorrect procedures are reliable, they are not sensitive enough to monitor gradual improvement adequately, and they are overly sensitive to variations due to personal style. They may be most useful during the initial acquisition stage of handwriting or as a tool for self-evaluation. Rating procedures, in contrast, are sensitive to gradual improvement in handwriting and make allowances for personal style. They are less reliable than correct/incorrect procedures, however. They probably should not be used as a tool for self-evaluation, because children may have difficulty objectifying the scoring criteria. Their greatest utility lies most likely in measuring handwriting progress during either initial acquisition or later as an individual style of handwriting emerges. Additional research concerning each of these procedures are needed, though, because issues of construct and concurrent validity have not been adequately addressed.

Other Assessment Procedures

Talbert-Johnson, Salva, Sweeney, and Cooper (1991) have argued that function (legibility) rather than topography should form the basis of handwriting assessment. They correctly noted that readers "are not concerned with exact correspondence between a handwritten letter and a model letter; they are concerned with whether the handwriting can be read with ease" (p. 118). As a result, Talbert-Johnson et al. examined if the readability of individual letters in writing samples provided a reliable and valid measure of handwriting. On five easy-to-read and live difficult-to-read samples of handwriting, all writing was blocked out except 21 different letters. Exam- iners were asked to identify each of the 21 letters on the blocked copy and were then asked to determine the accuracy of their judgments by using the context from the original version of the paper. Trained examiners were able to use the procedure reliably (interrater reliability exceeded 80%), and the number of agreements between the blocked and original version discriminated the easy-to-read from the difficult-to-read papers. In addition, there was little variation in scores for easy-to-read samples, but there was large variation in the difficult-to read papers.


McLaughlin, Mabee, Bryan, and Reiter (1987) also used readability to measure handwriting performance. The readability of each word in the writing of 36 U.S. adolescents with special needs was analyzed by placing a template with a single opening over each line of writing and moving it backward while reading each word. A word was scored as legible if it could be read with a zero latency period. Examiners were able to use the procedure reliably (84 to 100% interrater agreement), and the procedure was sensitive to changes in students' performance that occurred as a result of handwriting instruction.

Although the use of legibility as a measure of handwriting performance is not a new idea (Ayres, 1912), its relevance has become even more important with the advent of on-line computerized scoring. Measures of velocity, duration of the writing trace, pressure, stroke length, and so forth may provide a wealth of information about both the product and process of handwriting, but additional research is needed to determine if such measures can be used to discriminate reliably between different levels of legibility, ranging from easy- to difficult-to-read. As Talbert-Johnson et al.

(1991) noted, variations in handwriting can drift considerably before handwriting is considered illegible.

Finally a study by Wann and Kardirkamanathan (1991) provides a possible glimpse into the future of handwriting evaluation. They projected that off-line computerized scoring will eventually be used to identify children with handwriting difficulties. Samples of students' handwriting collected earlier will be scanned by a computer and appraised according to specific diagnostic criteria. As a precursor to off-line computerized scoring, their study sought to identify variables that might be used in such an analysis. A computer was used to pinpoint differences in the written products of 16 good and 16 poor handwriters in grades 4 and 5 in Australia. Wann and Kardirkamanathan identified two spatial measures--discontinuities in the writing line and form variability--that differentiated between the handwriting of the two groups. Although off-line computerized scoring awaits further study and development, it offers several potential advantages, including objective scoring criteria and the possibility of developing class, school, national, or even cultural normative databases.

Structure of Handwrit ing

In this section, studies that examined the structure of handwriting are reviewed. The development of valid assessment tools in handwriting is dependent upon the empirical study of the structure of handwriting. For example, the development of a handwriting scale measuring legibility needs


to take into account the basic factors underlying this construct. Because handwriting develops with age, it is also important to determine if the same structure is valid at lower as well as higher grades.

Ziviani and Elkins (1984) assessed factors influencing legibility. In a study involving 575 Australian children in grades 3 through 7, Ziviani and Elkins found that letter formation, spacing, alignment, and size were dis- criminable elements of legibility. Similarly, Graham et al. (1989) found that letter formation, spacing, and neatness significantly contributed to the prediction of the handwriting legibility of 61 students with learning disabilities in grades 4 through 6 in the United States. In a study by Mojet (1991) with 300 Dutch students in grades 2 through 6, two factors--form quality and speed--accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in children's handwriting. These studies confirm earlier research and theory that legibility is not a unitary process, and that both quality and speed are important components in the evaluation of handwriting (Graham and Miller, 1980).

A longitudinal study by Hamstra-Bletz and Blote (1990) in the Neth- erlands examined if the structure of cursive handwriting remained stable during elementary school. Starting in second grade, the handwriting of 63 children was assessed once a year for 5 years. The authors found that the strueture of handwriting was stable across grades and was primarily defined by stylistic preferences, regularity of the writing trace, and letter form and word spacing. Thus, according to this study, the development of cursive writing during the elementary school years can be described in terms of quantitative changes along fixed dimensions, suggesting that a single evaluation instrument would be sufficient at these ages.

L E T T E R F O R M S

Prior to the 1980s, the most critical issue involving handwriting script centered on the relative merits of manuscript or print writing vs. cursive writing (Graham, 1993/1994). During the 1980s, debate on manuscript vs. cursive writing declined and researchers turned their attention to other styles of print, such as italics or slanted manuscript alphabets. Several studies involving both manuscript and cursive writing, however, were published during the 1980-1994 period.

Armitage and Ratzlaff (1985) examined if chiidren's printing skills predicted their subsequent skills in cursive writing. At the start of the school year, just prior to cursive instruction, manuscript writing samples were collected from 137 children in third grade in Canada. Cursive samples were collected from the same students ó months later. With the exception of neatness, small to moderate correlations (.04 to .40) were found between


the manuscript and cursive samples on letter formation, size, slant, spacing, and alignment. Consequently, poor printers do not necessarily become poor cursive writers.

In a study with 30 adults in Canada, Suen (1983) found that cursive writing was about 40% faster than manuscript writing. Cursive writing also contained almost twice as many illegible letters as did manuscript writing. Interpretation of these findings, however, is problematic, especially for fluency, because most adults write in cursive, raising the possibility of practice effects.

Vertical vs. Slanted Manuscr ipt

In the United States, considerable interest has focused on the use of a slanted manuscript alphabet as a means for facilitating the transition from manuscript to cursive writing. Several educators, most notably Thurber (1983), have modified the traditional manuscript alphabet so that all of the letters are slanted and most of the lowercase manuscript letters resemble their cursive counterparts. Although the issues concerning the efficacy of traditional manuscript vs. the newer, slanted letters are simple and straight- forward, the debate has become muddled because participants have often failed to distinguish between claims for the two alphabets and claims for the methods used to teach them (Graham, 1992). The primary claims made by advocates of slanted manuscript letters fall into two basic categories: (a) slanted manuscript makes the transition to cursive easier, and (b) it is superior because letters are formed using a single, continuous stroke. The latter claim is superfluous because the continuous stroke method can and has been used with traditional manuscript, but it will be examined here in any case.

It is important to note that all of the studies comparing slanted vs. traditional manuscript alphabets are methodologically flawed. Almost uni- formly, researchers failed to control for differences in teaching methodol- ogy when comparing the effectiveness of these two types of alphabets. Moreover, neither instructors nor students were randomly assigned to treatments in most studies. Thus, several competing explanations for any obtained differences between the two alphabets are possible. The reliability of the handwriting measures used in most studies was also not established, jeopardizing the validity of both the assessments and the findings (Graham, 1986a). Any conclusions regarding the effects of manuscript style must be tempered, therefore, as a result of these limitations.

Claim 1: Transition to Cursive Writing. If the claim that slanted manuscript letters facilitate the transition to cursive writing is true, then students


who learn to print using a slanted manuscript alphabet should become better cursive writers than those who learn to print using traditional manuscript. This was examined in a longitudinal study by Farris (1982), where 86 kindergarten students were randomly assigned to two groups. From kindergarten to the first part of second grade, one group was taught slanted manuscript, while the other group was taught traditional manuscript. Dur- ing the second grade, both groups made the transition to cursive writing. Near the end of second grade, a sample of students' cursive writing was scored using 15 criteria (no information on the reliability of the scores was provided). Overall, students who learned traditional manuscript produced more legible cursive writing than did students in the slanted manuscript group. Students in the traditional group were less likely to misshape cursive letters, to extend strokes above and below the guidelines, and to vary the size of letters.

Similarly, Trap-Porter, Cooper, Hill, Swisher, and LaNunziata (1984) compared the eursive writing of 134 first grade students who were taught traditional manuscript and 112 first grade students who were taught slanted manuscript. Students were asked to copy the lower-case cursive alphabet. There were no differences between the two groups in the number of cursive letters omitted when copying or, more importantly, in the number of cursive strokes made correctly. Again, the production of cursive writing was not enhanced by the use of a slanted manuscript alphabet.

In a study by Ourada (1993), 45 third grade students were divided into two groups on the basis of academic skills and behavior. None of the children had previously been taught eursive writing. One of the groups spent 4 weeks learning to write slanted manuscript letters, followed by 8 weeks of cursive writing instruction. The other group followed the same schedule, but reviewed how to write traditional manuscript letters during the initial 4 weeks. A cursive writing sample collected at the end of the 12-week period was scored for overall legibility as well as letter formation, slant, and size (information on reliability was not provided). Because Ourada (1993) did not use statistical procedures to analyze the obtained scores, Graham (1992) conducted a series of chi-square analyses to determine if the cursive writing of the two groups differed. No differences were found between the groups in slant or in size of cursive letters. Although students in the slanted manuscript group were more likely to produce papers with acceptable letter formation, this proved to be a minor distinction because the overall legibility of the papers written by the two groups of students was not significantly different. In summary, the studies reviewed showed that using either slanted or more traditional manuscript letters produced either no differences or minor and unreliable distinctions in the quality of children's cursive writing.


Claim 2: Advantages of Continuous Stroke. Most manuscript letters can be formed by using either a single continuous stroke or two or more basic strokes (e.g., horizontal lines, vertical lines, slant lines, circles, and parts of circles). Advocates for continuous stroke manuscript letters claim that this feature results in writing that is more rhythmical, laster, and less directionally confusing (Coon and Palmer, 1993). As a result, developers of slanted manuscript alphabets have intentionally designed manuscript letters so that the majority can be formed using a single stroke (Thurber, 1983). Several studies have compared slanted manuscript alphabets emphasizing a continuous stroke with traditional manuscript alphabets not emphasizing a continuous stroke.

Phelps and Stempel (1988) compared the manuscript writing of 245 first and second grade students taught slanted manuscript with continuous stroke and 398 first and second grade students taught traditional manuscript without continuous stroke. There was no difference in the legibility of the students' writing. However, students taught traditional manuscript without continuous stroke wrote fastet than students taught slanted manuscript with continuous stroke.

In a study by Oglesby (1982) cited in Coon and Palmer (1993), 12 un- derachieving second graders were randomly divided into two groups that received 9 weeks of handwriting instruction. One group was taught slanted manuscript emphasizing a continuous stroke, and the other group was taught traditional manuscript without continuous stroke. Every 3 weeks, the quality of students' manuscript writing (e.g., legibility, letter formation, spacing, and so forth) was assessed by four teachers (no information on reliability was provided). Although the overall results of the investigation favored slanted manuscript with continuous stroke, scores on specific handwriting measures were so erratic across the three testing sessions (unexplainably going up and down or vice versa) that the reliability of the teachers' evaluations and, ul- timately, the validity of the study must be questioned.

Farris (1982) also examined the manuscript handwriting performance of 86 first grade students who had, since kindergarten used either slanted manuscript with continuous stroke or traditional manuscript without continuous stroke. Manuscript handwriting samples collected at two points during the first grade were scored using 15 criteria (e.g., letter formation, spacing, slant, and so forth). Information on the reliability of the scores was not provided. There were no significant differences between the two groups on any of the criteria, including the number of letters reversed.

One reason why Farris (1982) may have failed to find any advantage for slanted manuscript letters with continuous stroke is because these letters may require a greater degree of fine-motor control than traditional manuscript letters without continuous stroke. This issue was addressed by


Duvall (1985) who assessed the difficulty of these two types of alphabets. She found that the slanted manuscript letters with continuous stroke involve more movements that occur later in children's development, require more retracing of lines, and force the hand to change direction more orten. In contrast, the writer has to pay more attention to visual information, such as where strokes begin and meet, when using traditional manuscript without continuous strokes.

Any claims regarding the advantages of slanted manuscript alphabets based on the use of a continuous stroke must be considered premature at this time. No evidence exists to support assertions that this type of alphabet results in writing that is more rhythmical, faster, or less directionally confusing. In addition, such an alphabet does not appear to enhance the overall quality of students' manuscript writing.

Italics

Moilamen and Lehman (1989) examined the use of italics in teaching handwriting to children. In a longitudinal study involving over 1000 children in grades 3 through 5, the effects of 3 years of instruction in italic script was assessed. Across the 3 years, the quality of students' handwriting declined. The only year in which improvement was found between fall and spring assessments was the second year of implementation. In addition, many of the students presumably taught italics did not use this style on the twice yearly assessment probes, raising issues about students' preferences in handwriting style and teacher implementation of the program. A1- though teachers were generally positive about the program, negative comments and a desire to change programs increased over time.

Summary

Additional study of different styles of script is clearly warranted. Little will be gained, however, if the quality of the research in this area does not improve. At the most basic level, investigators need to establish the reliability of their assessments, more clearly describe the participants, randomly assign either students or classes to the target scripts, use the same methods to teach the target scripts, evaluate implementation of the instructional procedures, employ appropriate statistical analyses, and be more circumspect in the interpretation of findings.

Regardless of the script taught, children will inevitably develop their own style. Even teachers' production of the handwriting model they teach


is influenced by their personal style (Sassoon, 1991). Teachers who insist on strict adherence to a particular model, therefore, are likely to frustrate not only their students but themselves as well.

HANDWRITING INSTRUCTION

Classroom Instruction

During the 1980 to 1994 period, only three studies examined how or if handwriting was being taught. None of these studies involved direct observations; instead, teachers were surveyed about handwriting practices in their classrooms and schools. An important goal in future research, therefore, is to more widely and directly study classroom practices in handwriting.

In 1993, Zaner-Bloser, a company that produces handwriting materials, mailed surveys to 4970 kindergarten through sixth grade teachers across the United States. Surveys were completed by 52% of the respondents. Results of the survey revealed that approximately four out of every live schools required the teaching of handwriting, and three-fourths of the teachers used a commercial handwriting program. Although teachers typically spent 30 to 60 minutes a week teaching handwriting, two-thirds of the participants thought more emphasis should be placed on handwriting. The majority of the teachers (70%) also indicated that children's handwriting was not as good as it should be. Furthermore, only 36% of the teachers indicated that they received any formal training in handwriting instruction when working on their undergraduate degree.

In a study with teachers in England, Rubin and Henderson (198) mailed a questionnaire to all of the teachers of 10-year old children in a London borough (an 87% return rate was obtained). Four out of five teachers indicated that they taught handwriting during a separate period, whereas only one out of ten teachers did not teach handwriting at all. For the teachers who taught handwriting, the majority conducted structured whole class lessons supplemented by incidental instruction. This typically involved the use of workbooks (68%) and 20 to 60 minutes of instruction a week (61%).

In the third survey, Stein (1990) mailed a questionnaire to 274 special education teachers in Michigan who belonged to a professional organization in the area of learning disabilities. Although the results of this survey taust be interpreted cautiously (only a 34% return rate was obtained), most of the special education teachers (70%) indicated that handwriting was mainly taught by the regular teachers; the special educators primarily provided additional support as needed. When providing instruetion, few of the


special educators used handwriting workbooks. Instead, they commonly used ditto worksheets and emphasized instructional procedures such as tracing, air writing, and writing letters in the sand.

A crucial instructional issue in handwriting instruction is whether handwriting should be taught directly outside of the context of children's writing (Graham, 1992). In the Zaner-Bloser (1993) survey, one-half of the teachers surveyed thought handwriting instruction should be integrated into the language arts program. Similarly, whole language advocates emphasize that writing conventions, such as handwriting, are best learned by using them naturally and in concert with other language skills (Graham and Har- ris, 1994b). As a prominent whole language advocate noted, '~ skill should be taught when a particular child needs it for something else the child is working on" (Edelsky, 1990, p. 9). Although not all whole language teachers forego a formal handwriting program (Farris, 1989), decontextualized instruction is anathema for whole language purists. Despite the importance of this topic for the field of handwriting, we were unable to locate a single study that addressed this issue adequately. Although we did find one investigation that compared schools using systematic with less systematic handwriting instruction (Alston, 1985), it was correlational and lacked the level of detail necessary to interpret the findings fully. In this study, British students attending 14 schools with a systematic handwriting program were just as likely to have handwriting problems as were students attending two schools employing a less systematic approach to handwriting instruction. Whereas the approach to instruction was clearly defined in the "systematic" schools, it was unclear how handwriting was handled in schools using the less systematic approach. Empirical investigations comparing traditional, incidental, and whole language handwriting instruction are sorely needed.

Materials

Writing Instruments. In some kindergarten and primary grade classrooms, students use a "primary" or "beginner's" pencil when writing. In comparison to a regular pencil, the lead in a primary pencil is bigger and the diameter of the pencil is larger. Advocates for primary pencils argue that the larger diameter encourages correct finger position, discourages finger movement, reduces cramping, and is easier for young children to control (Graham, 1992).

Carlson and Cunningham (1990) tested the alleged superiority of the primary pencil for beginning writers. Forty-eight preschool children in the United States were observed as they used both a regular and primary pencil. Neither the quality of these children's writing nor their finger position,


finger movement, or pencil control was affected by the use of a primary pencil. Although these data do not support the exclusive use of either type of pencil with young children, it taust be noted that some of the participating children did better with a primary pencil and that others did better with a regular size pencil.

Ziviani (1981), studying 54 third grade children in Australia, compared the effects of a primary pencil with a regular pencil with and without a triangular grip attachment. Although the three pencil conditions did not differentially affect students' accuracy in tracing a line, they did influence pencil posture. Students who used the primary pencil or the regular pencil with the triangular grip attachment were more likely to bow the joint closest to the end of the index finger inward more than 90 degrees. In addition, the primary pencil was more likely than the two versions of the regular peneil to result in the forearm being rotated to the side, so that its angle of supination was greater than 45 degrees. Thus, the primary pencil resulted in a more relaxed position for the forearm, but resulted in a less mature position for the index finger (Ziviani, 1983).

Lamme and Ayris (1983) extended the study of writing tools for beginning writers by examining the effects of a primary pencil with and without molded grips, regular pencil with and without a triangular grip, and feR-tip pens. For a full semester, 35 first grade classrooms (798 children) in the United States used one of these live writing instruments during their daily handwriting period. Writing instruments were randomly assigned by class. At the end of the semester, there were no differences in the legibility of a sentence copied by the students using the five different writing instruments. The results of the three studies reviewed here are generally consistent with earlier research (Graham, 1992), suggesting that children should be allowed to use a variety of instruments when learning to write.

Paper. Another common practice in handwriting instruction involves the use of wide lined paper. Advocates who have championed the use of paper with wider lines for beginning writers argue that this helps young children compensate for their normally farsighted vision and lack of finger strength by decreasing strain on eyesight and allowing greater ffeedom of movement (Waggoner, LaNunziata, Hill, and Cooper, 1981). Although claims concerning the effects of wide lined paper on eye strain have not been examined, a series of studies conducted in the United States in the 1980s examined the effects of wide lines on handwriting control (Hill et al., 1982; Trap-Porter et al., 1983; Waggoner et aL, 1981). In these studies, children copied manuscript or cursive letters on paper with two different sizes of line width (e.g., 3.4 cm vs. 1.6 cm). Wider lines facilitated the production of manuscript letters by kindergarten through second grade chil-


dren (Hill et al., 1982; Waggoner et aL, 1981) and the cursive production of letters for children in grades 2 and 3 (Trap-Porter et al., 1983).

Wide lined paper was not helpful in all situations, however. In the study by Waggoner et al. (1981), it helped suburban kindergartners and first graders, but it did not facilitate the performance of urban children of the same age with less developed writing skills. Furthermore, although wider lines facilitated the manuscript performance of second graders in the study by Hill et al. (1982), third grade students' skills in writing manuscript letters were so weil developed that wider lines did not affect their performance.

Researchers also examined the effects of writing on unlined paper. Lindsay and McLennan (1983) asked 101 6- to 9-year-old children in Eng- land to write an essay on both lined (1 cm apart) and unlined paper. A1- though lined and unlined paper did not influence the quality or length of students' essays, legibility was affected for the youngest and oldest students participating in the experiment. The papers of the 6-year-olds were more legible when written on unlined paper. An opposite effect was observed for the 9-year-olds. No differences were noted for the 7- and 8-year-old students. Thus, for very young children, paper with very small lines may not provide a suitable match to their current level of handwriting control.

In considering the place of different types of paper and writing instruments in children's writing programs, we would like to echo a recommen- dation made by Coles and Goodman (1980). They suggested that a variety of different types of paper and writing instruments be available for children to use during school. Requiring a student to use only orte type of a paper or a specific writing instrument may be unnecessarily restrictive, because children use a variety of different types of material when writing at home.

Modeling

When teaching letter formation, it is commonly recommended that the teacher model how to form the letter, while the child observes the number, order, and direction of strokes (Graham and Miller, 1980). During the 1980 to 1994 period, the effectiveness of different methods of modeling letter formation was studied by investigators in the United States.

Hayes (1982), studying 45 kindergarten and 45 third grade children, examined the effects of visual and/or verbal demonstration prior to practice in copying letter-like forms. For kindergarten children, the combination of visual and verbal modeling was superior to visual modeling alone, which was superior to no modeling at all (reliability of students' scores was not established). For the third graders, visual modeling was superior to visual and verbal modeling combined, which was superior to no modeling at all.


Although the reasons for the different patterns of effects for kindergarten and third grade children are unclear, modeling prior to practice did have a positive effect on the accuracy of students' reproductions at both grades.

Kirk (1981) also examined the effectiveness of visual and verbal demonstration prior to practice in learning 12 uppercase and 12 lowercase letters. Fifty-four kindergarten children, ages 4 and 5, were randomly assigned to one of four groups: visual demonstration, verbal explanation, combined visual and verbal modeling, and no demonstration. Demonstration on how to form letters was based on the copying rules identified by Goodnow and Levine (1973). Combined visual and verbal demonstration was superior to either visual or verbal modeling, which was superior to copying practice only (the no-demonstration group). In addition, all three groups that received some form of modeling were better at writing untrained letters than was the group that received copying practice only.

Two studies compared the effectiveness of a motion illustration of how to form a letter with a still model of the letter (e.g., model of letter with arrows and numbers indicating order and direction of strokes). Wright and Wright (1980) randomly assigned 120 first grade students to two conditions. In one condition, students were encouraged to use fiip books (illustrating how to make specific letters) as a guide to forming letters and as a means for evaluating letters produced during practice. Sets of the 26 flipbooks for lower case manuscript letters were available throughout the classroom. Stu- dents in the other group were provided with still models of the target letters to use during practice. For both groups, the teacher demonstrated how to form each letter prior to practice. Although the handwriting of the two groups of students improved over the 11-week study, there appeared to be no difference in their performance; means on the posttest differed by only one-tenth of a point on a 5-point scale. The authors of the study incorrectly claimed that the flip book was superior to the still model, but they did not obtain a significant interaction between condition and time of testing (pre- test vs. post-test). Instead they obtained a significant main effect for condition, which averaged performance on the pre-test and post-test together. Furthermore, no evidence was provided that students actually used the flipbooks, raising questions about the validity of the independent variable.

LaNunziata, Cooper, Hill, and Trap-Porter (1985) compared the effectiveness of still models, animated motion illustrations, and live visual and verbal modeling. An alternating treatment design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the three types of models with 14 kindergarten children. Prior to practicing letters in the still model condition, the teacher explained that students were to follow the arrows and numbers provided (this was demonstrated with two letters). In the motion illustration condition, the animated illustration was presented before students practiced copying let-


ters. A similar procedure was used during live modeling. Whereas the live modeling condition resulted in an improvement in students' letter-writing skills, the still models and the animated motion illustrations did not. More- over, improvements obtained in the live modeling condition with individual letters transferred to a regular writing task.

Collectively, the results of the studies reviewed in this section support teacher modeling of letter formation prior to practice. Recommendations concerning the efficacy of still models and motion illustrations, however, await the results of future research.

Behavioral Techniques

During the 1970s, behavioral researchers examined the effectiveness of reinforcement, feedback, and self-assessment on handwriting performance (Kerr and Lambert, 1982). Although interest in these two areas continued in the 1980-1994 period, behavioral researchers in the United States also examined procedures based on punishment.

In a study with three third grade students with cursive handwriting problems, Mabee (1988) used a multiple-baseline-across-subjects design to examine the effectiveness of positive practice in reducing handwriting errors. During treatment (a minimum of ten sessions), students were asked to write the cursive letters of the alphabet. If an error was made on a letter, the student was required to write the letter correctly 20 times. During each session, this was limited to three errors to minimize student frustra- tion. This procedure had a small effect on students' performance, resulting in an average improvement of six correctly written letters.

In a subsequent study by McLaughlin et al. (1987), the effects of both positive practice and response cost on the writing legibility of 36 junior high school students receiving special services were evaluated using a coun- terbalanced, multiple-baseline design across groups. Positive practice involved writing 20 times any word that was illegible from a 5-minute creative writing exercise. Response cost involved subtracting 3 points from students' daily score for each illegible word produced while completing the assign= ment. Although both techniques reduced the number of errors made, they also resulted in a reduction in the number of legible words written. The findings from this study suggest that such techniques should be avoided, because they create an undesirable side effect.

Negative effects were also obtained in a study where contingent reinforcement was applied. In a study with 56 fourth and fifth grade students in Australia, Sharpley, Irvine, and Hattie (1980) found that the contingent administration of verbal praise and privileges resulted in improvements in


handwriting performance. When contingent rewards were not administered to everyone in the class deserving them, however, performance declined for both the rewarded and unrewarded. It is possible that students perceived this arrangement as unfair and consequently deintegrated the value of the reinforcer.

Finally, two case studies examined the effectiveness of behavioral approaches in teaching handwriting to students with special needs. McCoy and Leader (1980) successfully taught five persons who were visually im- paired (ages 12 to 27) how to write their name in cursive using shaping, physical and oral eues, and tracing. Hartley and Salzwedel (1980), however, were only able to affect modest changes in the handwriting of a 12-year- old boy with autism after extensive practice involving a variety of behavioral procedures, including fading, feedback, reinforcement, tracing, copying, and so forth.

Although the results from the studies reviewed in this section might lead the reader to question the value of behavioral procedures in teaching handwriting, it should be noted that behavioral techniques were used throughout the instructional studies reviewed in this paper. It would be hard to envision an instructional program in handwriting that did not include behaviora! procedures.

Self-Regulation Procedures

Self-Verbalizations. In 1970, Furner recommended that teachers should require students to make a mental response as well as a motor response when learning to write a letter. The mental response could include "asking children to verbalize the formational process in their own words, having children think the movement of a letter, or visualize or write the letter as it is described by another child" (Furner, 1970, p. 68).

Using a multiple-baseline-across-subjects design, Graham (1983) examined if the combination of traditional practice activities with orte of Furner 's recommendat ions--verbal izat ion of the formational process--would improve the letter writing skills of one fourth and two third grade students with learning disabilities. The students practiced tracing, copying, and writing from memory letters while verbalizing how to form them. Students were also encouraged to evaluate and reinforce their efforts. After 5 hours of instruction, students made only modest gains on the two letters targeted for instruction. In addition, shaping and maintaining students' self-verbalizations required a great deal of effort. Robin, Armel, and O'Leary (1975) reported similar difficulties teaching and maintaining self-


verbalizations in an earlier study involving kindergarten children who had writing diffieulties.

Hayes (1982) obtained more positive outcomes in a study involving 45 regular kindergarten and 45 third grade students in the United States. He found that students who first received a visual and verbal demonstration of how to write letter-like forms, followed by verbalizing how to write them during practice, outperformed students who received no practice, practice without initial modeling, practice with visual modeling, and practice with both visual and verbal modeling (no data on reliability of scores were provided). The effects were so strong that kindergarten children who practiced the combination of visual and verbal modeling with self-verbalizations outscored third graders who received practice only.

Although there are not enough data currently available to offer a sound judgment concerning the value of self-verbalizations as an aid to improving letter formation, it should be realized that self-verbalizations are only a temporary crutch that should be dropped when no longer needed. Continued use of self-verbalizations to guide letter formation places an un- wanted constraint on how fast letters can be produced. This should not discourage researchers, though, from examining other uses of self-verbali- zation in handwriting instruction. For example, Kosiewicz, Hallahan, Lloyd, and Graves (1982) used self-verbalizations as a means for helping a 9-year- old U.S. boy with learning disabilities concentrate his attention when copying words and connected text. The child was directed to say verbally each word, syllable, and letter as it was written, resulting in a sizable increase in the percent of correctly produced letters and punctuation marks.

Self-Assessment. A popular eomponent of basal handwriting programs is self-assessment (Graham, 1992). Most of the research examining the effectiveness of this technique, though, has focused on students with special needs in the United States. Studies with these children have involved small numbers of participants, using single-subject research designs to evaluate instructional outcomes.

Several studies examined the effectiveness of self-assessment in improving the appearance of the free writing of students with special needs. In a study by Blandsford and Lloyd (1987), the appearance of the journal writing of two boys with learning disabilities (ages 10 and 11) was improved by encouraging them to evaluate their sitting position and the formation and spacing of letters as they wrote. The handwriting performance of both students remained above baseline levels, even when the self-assessment procedures were no longer in place.

Anderson-Inman, Paine, and Deutchman (1984) taught 15 special students (ages 10 to 12) nine skills for making their papers neater (e.g., good erasures) during a morning period in their special education classroom. A1-


though directly teaching neatness skills had little effect on the appearance of assignments produced in later periods, the addition of a self-evaluation checklist to the instructional regime promoted transfer on the neatness skills targeted for instruction. After they completed an assignment, students placed a smiley face next to each feature listed on the checklist that was done appropriately.

Other studies examined the effectiveness of including self-assessment as part of the instructional routine during practice exercises such as copying letters, words, or connected text. McLaughlin (1983) found that the on-task behavior and the percent of items completed correctly during daily handwriting practice for three students with behavioral disorders (8 and 9 years old) improved when they were cued to monitor their attentional behavior. Likewise, in two experiments by Stowitschek, Ghezzi, and Safely (1987), 10- to 13-year-old children with mild mental retardation (IQ range 50 to 75) were taught to evaluate and correct manuscript letters after copying them. The students used a template overlay to evaluate copied letters, highlighting the correct formation of the letter with a felt tip pen and then retracing the highlight in pencil. In both studies, students' letter-formation skills improved dramatically, and improvements were maintained when the self-evaluation procedures were removed.

Kosiewicz, Hallahan, and Lloyd (1981) taught an 11-year-old boy with learning disabilities to employ two different strategies. One strategy involved circling correctly copied words or letters immediately following the completion of the handwriting assignment. The other strategy involved reviewing a series of rules (e.g., keep letters on the line) for copying just prior to starting the assignment. Although the later strategy was not designed as a self-assessment procedure, it may have induced self-evaluation because it encouraged the student to focus on the criteria for correct performance. Both strategies improved copying accuracy. The student did best when allowed to make his own choice about the strategy to be used. The student consistently chose the self-assessment strategy involving circling.

In a second study by Kosiewicz et al. (1982), the copying accuracy of a 9-year-old boy with learning disabilities was further improved by adding a self-assessment procedure to an already existing self-instructional regime. The effects of having the child say aloud the words and their component parts while copying them was enhanced by having hirn first circle handwriting errors made on the previous day's copying assignment.

We located only one study conducted during the 1980 to 1994 period that examined the effectiveness of self-assessment procedures with children without special needs. Burkhalter and Wright (1984) randomly assigned 81 first grade children in the United States to two different self-assessment conditions. One group used transparent overlays to evaluate copied manu-


script letters, whereas the other group selected their best letter and explained why it was best. After 36 instructional sessions, small but nonsignificant improvements in the letter writing skills of the two groups were found (reliability of students' scores was not established). The transparent overlays were no more effective than was identifying best letters.

We encourage researchers to extend the application of handwriting self-assessment procedures to a broader range of authentic writing tasks, as was done in the Blandford and Lloyd (1987) study with journal writing. In addition, the value of other self-regulation procedures, such as goal setting and self-reinforcement, should be explored. Encouraging students, particularly older ones for instance, to set explicit goals for improving the appearance of their handwriting may be especially fruitful.

Computer-Assisted Handwriting Instruction

On several occasions we have heard the prediction that handwriting would become obsolete as computers and word processing became more widely available. The possible demise of handwriting, however, has been greatly exaggerated. The keyboard has not replaced the pen as the stylus of choice, and some of the newer products, such as the computerized note- books, involve entering information not with a keyboard, but a pen.

An interesting twist in the evolving role of technology is that instead of replacing handwriting, computers were placed in its service. We located ten studies during the 1980 to 1994 period that used digitized tablets as part of handwriting instruction. Much of this research was conducted by Sovik in Norway. He typically used computers and other forms of technology as a means for providing feedback and for facilitating tracing, tracking, and copying exercises.

Studies by Sovik. In a quasi-experimental study involving 16 7-year-olds and 16 10-year-olds, Sovik (1980) examined if children's performance in tracing, tracking, and copying could be improved through instruction. The participants were assigned to one of four practice groups: copying, tracing, tracking, and tracking adjusted to students' speed. All four groups practiced four different patterns in a computerized laboratory. In the tracking condition, students were asked to use the writing stylus to follow, at the same speed, the writing pattern as it was presented on a special writing table. When tracking was adjusted to students' speed, the speed at which the model was presented depended on changes in the speed and rhythm of the writer. Although copying practice was beneficial to the younger 7-year- otds, it did not facilitate the copying performance of older students. In contrast, tracing practice improved tracing performance for older students,


but not for younger ones. Tracking, however, benefitted students of both ages.

In subsequent studies, Sovik and his colleagues examined if more generalized performance could be attained as a result of training in their laboratory. In a study involving 12 fifth graders, Sovik and Teulings (1983) randomly assigned the participants to either a control condition that continued to receive handwriting instruction at school or an experimental condition that received handwriting instruction at school plus instruction at a computerized lab. In the lab, the examiner first modeled how to form a letter-like pattern. The student then tried to copy the pattern on a sheet of paper at the same speed as the examiner (tracking). Next, the student copied the pattern on the special writing table. After 12 seconds, the trace for the letter was presented on the special writing table as well as feedback on velocity and smoothness. Approximately 36 patterns were practiced over six sessions. Although students in the experimental group were more accurate in writing words and patterns on the digitized tablet than were students in the control group, no differences were found in sentence writing accuracy on the tablet, pattern writing accuracy on paper, or writing smoothness. Although the experimental group wrote 18 letters per minute faster than the control group, this difference was not large enough to be statistically significant, possibly due to the small number of participants involved in the study.

In a similarly designed study with students with poor handwriting, Sovik (1984) randomly assigned 12 third graders to a control group receiving conventional handwriting instruction at school and an experimental group receiving the same instruction plus instruction at the computerized lab. In the lab, students traced, tracked, and copied figures, letter, clusters of letters, and sentences three times. Individualized practice emphasizing tracking was also provided tO each of the students in the experimental group. Although the additional work in the lab did not affect the speed at which students wrote, the accuracy of the writing of students in the experimental group surpassed that of control students on tests administered in both the lab and at school.

In two other studies, Sovik included both good and poor handwriters. In a quasi-experimental study involving 36 9-year-olds, Sovik (1981) assigned participants to one of three conditions. The control group received conventional group handwriting instruction at school. Another group received individualized handwriting instruction at school, whereas a third group received the school-based individualized instruction plus instruction at the computerized lab. In the lab, students received general as well as individual instruction in tracing, in tracking and in copying patterns, letters, letter clusters, and words on the special writing table. Although the instruc-


tional conditions did not affect students' speed of writing or tracing behavior, this was not the case for copying, tracking, or writing accuracy. The group receiving instruction in the computerized lab were better copiers than the other two groups, were better trackers than the individualized handwriting group, and had better handwriting accuracy than the control group. The only measure on which the individualized handwriting instruction group outscored the control group was on copying.

In the second study, Sovik, Arntzen, and Thygesen (1986) randomly assigned ten average and ten poor handwriters to an experimental and control group. The third grade students in the control group received conventional handwriting instruction at school. The third grade students in the experimental group also received this instruction plus instruction in the computerized lab. Each session in the laboratory typically began with the examiner showing students how to correctly hold their writing instrument and how to form specific letter like patterns. After students practiced these tasks, they did them on the special writing table using principles of tracing and tracking. Although 3 weeks of practice in the lab did not affect students' speed or smoothness in writing, students in the experimental group were more accurate in writing sentences and in copying patterns onto paper than were students in the control group.

The work by Sovik demonstrated that the type of practice exercises provided in his computerized lab can affect the copying, tracking, and writing accuracy of both good and poor handwriters. These activities did not influence speed or smoothness of students' writing, though, and their effects on improving students' tracing skills were inconsistent. The findings from Sovik's work must be furthered tempered as a consequence of methodological limitations. It is not possible to rule out either Hawthorne or practice effects in the studies reviewed here. All of the students that received instruction in the computerized laboratory were provided more handwriting instruction and may have received a further boost as a result of doing something special or getting to use "high-tech" equipment. Interpretation of results is further complicated because Sovik orten did not provide an adequate description of either control or experimental procedures, making it difficult to replicate these procedures in other settings. Nonetheless, Sovik's work makes a seminal contribution to the area of handwriting instruction, as he has creatively and persistently explored new ways to employ technology in the teaching of handwriting to children.

Other Studies. Macleod and Lally also conducted pioneering work in the use of computer technology in Australia. They developed a computer- based system where a blinking cursor guided the path of the pen, moving each time the pen covered it. The program was designed so that the degree


of variation allowed in tracking a target letter could be set in advance or adjusted in response to students' performance.

Research by Macleod and Lally produced evidence that the computer- based program was effective with students with special needs. In a study by Macleod and Lally (1981) with 18 mildly handicapped students with handwriting difficulties, the computer-based system resulted in greater improvement in manuscript handwriting than traditional handwriting instruction. In a second study with nine boys in a special school, Lally (1982) found that the greatest improvement in manuscript writing was made when the degree of variation allowed in tracking a letter was systematically reduced as students reached an asymptote in speed and accuracy of tracking.

The positive results from the Macleod and Lally studies, however, were only partially replicated by Roberts and Samuels (1993) who studied Ca- nadian children with learning disabilities and their regular classmates. In this study, 36 students with handwriting difficulties in grades 4 through 6 were randomly assigned to three groups. One group received traditional handwriting instruction including pencil, paper, plastic overlays, and felt-tip pens to trace and copy letters. Conventional instruction in tracing and copying letters was provided to a second group through a computer system. Based on the research by Macleod and Lally, the third group completed computer-based handwriting exercises, tracking visible and invisible letters. The pre-test to post-test scores of the conventional handwriting group improved in five areas, including parents' and teachers' ratings of handwriting quality, letter formation, alignment, and letter size within words. The two groups using computers, however, only showed improvement in two areas each. For the conventional computer instruction group, parent ratings and difficulties with letter closures improved. Computerized instruction pat- terned after the Macleod and Lally exercises resulted in improvements in teacher ratings and on computer-based exercise involving tracing, tracking, and copying.

Whereas the work of Macleod and Lally examined the use of computerized tracking as a means for improving poor handwriting performance, a group of researchers in Canada explored the effectiveness of computer- izing handwriting instruction based on behavioral principles. White, Cun- ningham, and Brewer (1989) devised a system where the target letter was modeled in blue on a PC monitor, and the writer was then directed to trace the letter on a sheet of paper placed over a digitized tablet. Once written, the student's letter was reproduced on the PC monitor in white over the blue model, and any part of the student's letter falling outside the preset tolerance limit was displayed in bright pink. Numerical scores on the student's performance were also displayed at this point, and visual reinforcement (smiling face and ice cream cones), contingent upon per-


formance, was provided. Thus, the computerized systems provided individualized instruction, including immediate feedback and reinforcement, principles often difficult to actualize in a classroom full of children.

The data currently available on the effectiveness of this system are limited to two studies where the manuscript letter "q" was taught to a small number of students. White, Cunningham, and Brewer (1989) reported that three young children with writing problems (ages 5 and 6) improved their "q" writing skills by an average of 2.4 points on a 7-point scale as a result of using the computerized program. A similar level of improvement was found for nine out of ten students with moderate retardation (ages 8 to 19) in an investigation by Brewer, Cunningham, and White (1989/1990). Although these findings are encouraging, additional validation involving a broader range of handwriting skills is needed.

We anticipate that even more sophisticated computerized instructional handwriting programs will be developed and studied in this and the upcoming decade. At some point, the major publishers of handwriting programs will get involved in this process and develop their own computerized products. We encourage these developers to carefully field test their products, obtaining evidence on their effectiveness. Until computers and other technological advances become more common in schools and at home, though, computerized instruction will not play a significant role in handwriting development. Eventually, however, the widespread availability of such technological advances (e.g., dictation/word processing systems) may make handwriting much less important in the everyday lives of children.

Color Cuing Difficult Parts of Letters

The optimal stimulation theory developed by Hebb (1955) led to the hypothesis that children with attention disorders are less tolerant of rote, minimally stimulating tasks than are their normal peers and, consequently, should attend to tasks more readily when color is added. Zentall and Kruczek (1988) provided support for this prediction. They asked 17 boys with attention problems and 17 boys without attention problems (9 to 12 years of age) in the United States to copy six lines of print under both low and high stimulation conditions. In the low stimulation condition, all words were written in black letters. In the high stimulation condition, color was added to letters, two different colors per page. For both high and low stimulation, students were randomly assigned to two different highlighting conditions: random or relevant (on the difficult part of letters). In the low stimulation condition, highlighting was accomplished by widening a part of the letter, and color was used to highlight in the high stimulation condition.


Although color highlighting difficult letter parts did not influence the handwriting of boys without attention problems, it reduced the number of clo- sure errors made by boys with attention problems. Thus, if color is used to increase task engagement for children with attention difficulties, it should be used to draw attention to relevant details.

Prewriting Exercise

A common prewriting exercise is to have students practice tracing or copying continuous patterns. Maarse, van de Veerdonk, van der Linden, and Pranger-Moll (1991) examined if practice activities such as these have a carry- over effect in improving poor handwriting. In this study, 13 Dutch students in a secondary school (12 to 14 years of age) spent 4 months practicing movements such as arcades, clockwise and counterclockwise movements, factory rooftops, and so forth. At the end of this period, the quality of their handwriting improved, pen pressure deereased, and writing velocity increased. In contrast, a control group consisting of four poor handwriters who did not receive instruction evidenced a decrease in handwriting quality. Although these data suggest that prewriting exercises can have a positive effect on the handwriting of poor writers, it is not clear from this experiment if equal or superior gains would have been obtained just by directly teaching handwriting.

Relaxation Training

The prospect that stress may contribute to learning difficulties led several investigators in the United States to examine if helping poor writers relax during handwriting instruction would facilitate the learning process. In a series of case studies of four boys with learning disabilities, Carter and Russell (1980) used EMG biofeedback to help the boys relax just prior to handwriting instruction. Although the researchers presented evidence that the boys learned to decrease forearrn muscular tension, collaborating evidence on handwriting, with the exception of a global declaration of improvement, was not provided. In addition, the boys were so poorly described that basic information, such as age and face, were not presented.

In a second study, Carter and Russell (1985) randomly assigned 32 boys with learning disabilities (mean age 10.3) to two groups. In one group, the boys received 10 minutes of relaxation training using EMG biofeedback as part of each handwriting practice session. Furthermore, students in this group were given an audiotape, using passive muscle relaxation and visual imagery, to listen to before doing their handwriting homework. Students


in the other group served as controls, only taking the pre-test and post-test. In comparison to the control group, the handwriting legibility of students in the experimental condition evidenced greater improvement. Although the authors replicated this study with an additional group of 30 boys with learning disabilities (8 and 9 years old), it was not possible to determine the components responsible for improvements in handwriting for the experimental participants, because they could be due to handwriting practice, relaxation training, or a combination of both.

Jackson, Jolly, and Hamilton (1980) examined the use of relaxation training with both poor and average handwriters. From an initial pool of 400 fourth grade students, 58 poor handwriters, and 56 average handwriters were identified and assigned nonrandomly to four conditions. These included a taped-relaxation approach, a taped-relaxation approach containing suggestions for improving handwriting, a taped presentation of traditional handwriting instruction, and a taped method combining relaxation training and traditional handwriting instruction. For average handwriters, the four conditions had little or no effect on slant, letter formation, uniformity of script, and general excellence (no reliability on students' scores was provided). All but the combined method, however, resulted in improvements in the spacing of average handwriters. For poor handwriters, the combination of taped relaxation training and traditional handwriting instruction was more effective than just relaxation training for spacing, letter formation, uniformity of script, and general excellence. In fact, all of the taped methods that focused poor handwriters' attention on handwriting were more effective than relaxation training alone in improving the overall excellence of handwriting. These findings suggest that the positive effects obtained in the studies above by Carter and Russell (1980, 1985) with poor handwriters were not due just to relaxation training, but were more likely a consequence of the handwriting instruction provided or a combination of these two components.

We would encourage researchers to more carefully select participants in future studies involving relaxation training. In the studies reviewed in this section, any student with learning or handwriting problems was deemed suitable for relaxation training. We argue that such procedures might be more suitable for students who are not only poor writers, but who are overly tense or stressed when writing.

Handwriting's Contribution to Learning in Other Areas

Two studies by Cunningham and Stanovich (1990) examined if the learning of spelling words was enhanced by the motoric act of writing them out by hand. In a study with 24 first grade children in the United States, they


found that writing words to be studied by hand was superior to practicing them on the computer or with letter tiles. They replicated these findings in a second study involving an additional 24 first graders. In the second study, they also examined if three different motoric methods for practicing the spelling words affected children's reading of those words. Reading was not enhanced by writing words out by hand. A similar finding for reading sight words was found in a study comparing handwriting versus typing practice with 12- to 14-year-old children with moderate retardation (Calhoun, 1985).

The findings from the Cunningham and Stanovich studies regarding spelling were not replicated in two other studies conducted in the United States. In a study with 24 normally achieving students who had completed first grade and 24 students with learning disabilities who had completed either first or second grade, Vaughn, Schumm, and Gordon (1992) reported that handwriting, letter tiles, and computer practice had an equal effect on spelling performance. In a subsequent study with older students (48 third and fourth graders with and without learning disabilities), Vaughn, Schumm, and Gordon (1993) again found no differential effect due to motoric practice condition. In this study, letter tiles were replaced by letter tracing.

Why were different outcomes obtained in the studies by Cunningham and Stanovich (1990) and Vaughn et al. (1992, 1993)? First, differences in the socioeconomic status of the participants in the two sets of studies may have been a contributing factor. In the studies by Cunningham and Stanovich, the participants were from a high SES population, whereas in the studies by Vaughn and her colleagues the participants' SES level was considerably lower. Second, methodological differences may have also contributed to the discrepant findings. In the studies by Vaughn and her colleagues, several methodological improvements were made. In both studies, evidence that all of the words to be studied were unknown was included. In the second study, more effective learning techniques were used, more study time was provided, and an immediate and delayed spelling test were administercd. Thus, the research by Vaughn and her colleagues challenges the generality as well as the veracity of the finding that learning spelling words is enhanced by handwriting. For the students with learning disabilities in the studies by Vaughn and colleagues, however, it is possible that handwriting difficulties may have influenced the outcomes; this possibility should be investigated in future studies.

Summary

Research in the 1980 to 1994 period led to several important advance- ments in the area of handwriting instruction. Significant gains were made


in the knowledge of how to teach handwriting to students with special needs and students with handwriting problems. The options available for teaching handwriting also expanded as a consequence of the computer revolution.

Much remains to be done, however. A broader and clearer picture of how handwriting is currently taught is needed. The claims of whole language advocates and others who argue for alternative methods for learning handwriting should be assessed. In addition, research aimed at identifying effective procedures for helping those who struggle with handwriting taust continue.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Handwriting research matured considerably during the 1980 to 1994 period. Major research programs, involving investigators from a variety of disciplines, broadened both the scope and quality of study. The development of new concepts and models have led to an increase in theory-based research. Computerized, on-line analysis of handwriting behavior and the use of innovative experimental procedures, borrowed mostly from motor psychology, resulted in a level of sophistication not possible in the previous decades. The advent of the personal computer and other technological advances provided new venues for teaching handwriting. Thus, the prospects for handwriting research in the upcoming years are promising.

These advances led to significant progress in several areas. The processes underlying handwriting control were more fully explicated. The study of handwriting development expanded to include both product and process. Inquiry concerning atypical and arrested development moved beyond correlations to the experimental study of the psychomotor processes, including the components of the motor program, responsible for handwriting difficulties. A variety of effective instructional techniques for teaching students with handwriting problems and students with special needs were also identified.

Although we applaud these advances, much remains to be done. Mod- els of handwriting focusing on normal and atypical development of children are needed. Longitudinal research of handwriting development should continue, but should be expanded to include the types of experimental procedures used to study handwriting control with adults. More attention needs to be directed at handwriting development during adolescents. The initial progress made in understanding atypical development also needs to continue. Finally, instructional practices in the classroom must be more thor- oughly surveyed, and neglected instructional topics, such as contextualized vs. decontextualized teaching, should be addressed.


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A review of handwriting research: Progress and prospects from 1980 to 1994

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