HandwritingToday

Number 15 Autumn 2016

HandwritingToday

number 9 autumn 2010

ISSN 1744-036X

Handwriting Today - Number 9 2010

Published by the National Handwriting AssociationCharity Number 1051157

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HandwritingToday

number 9 autumn 2010

ISSN 1744-036X

Handwriting Today - Number 9 2010

Published by the National Handwriting AssociationCharity Number 1051157

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Handwriting TodayJournal of the National Handwriting Association

Registered Charity No. 1051157

Website: www.nha-handwriting.org.uk

Chair: Angela WebbVice chairs Catherine Elsey

Mary Howard

Handwriting Today is published annually and is mailed free to NHA members

Handwriting Today 1

Editorial 2

Research Articles 3• Pen-orkeyboard?Theinfluenceofthewritingtoolonreadingandwritingperformanceinpreschool children • Newhandwritingtechnologies:howthetabletscreensurfaceaffectsstudentsgrapho-motorexecution• HandwritingQualityAnalysisofBlockLettersandCursiveWords

ResearchDigest 23• Acomprehensivemeta-analysisofhandwritinginstruction• Developinginteractionsbetweenlanguageandmotorskillsinthefirstthreeyearsofformalhandwriting education• Eyemovementsduringthehandwritingofwords:individuallyandwithinsentences• Developmentaltestofvisual-motorintegration(VMI):Aneffectiveoutcomemeasureforhandwriting interventionsforkindergarten,first-grade,andsecond-gradestudents?• Acomparisonbetweenstudentswhoreceiveandwhodonotreceiveawritingreadinessinterventions onhandwritingquality,speedandpositivereactions.• Theeffectoftouch-typingprogramonkeyboardingskillsofhighereducationstudentswithandwithout learningdisabilities• Grapho-motorskillsinchildrenwithdevelopmentalcoordinationdisorder(DCD):Handwritingand learninganewletter• Uniquehandwritingperformancecharacteristicsofchildrenwithhighfunctioningautismspectrum disorder• Dyslexicchildrenfailtocomplywiththerhythmicconstraintsofhandwriting• SpellingimpairmentsinSpanishdyslexicadults

CurrentIssues 35• Weneedtotalkabout‘dysgraphia’• UpdatesontheJoiningDebate

TipsforTeaching 41• ‘PChecks’explained

HandwritingintheMedia 49

ReviewofResources 56

NHANews 62

ConferenceReviews 69

Contents

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EditorialEdito

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I am pleased to present the NHA’s annual journal for 2016. There have been great developments in the field of handwriting during the past year and the content of the journal reflects this activity.

It begins with the Research section, edited by Dr Emma Sumner, which contains three interesting research articles addressing critical questions around the relationship between handwriting and technology. In the ever-growing research digest, ten articles are summarized which look at handwriting interventions and the effect of handwriting on other aspects of development, particularly with regard to handwriting difficulties linked with various developmental disorders.

The Current Issues section examines the use of the term ‘dysgraphia’, something which causes consternation among parents and professionals alike. A look at how the term is used in different countries is followed by an examination of how descriptors for developmental disorders are established. The possible issues around defining and labelling handwriting difficulties in particular are also discussed. In the concluding part of this section there are two short updates on last year’s topic – The Teaching of Continuous Cursive handwriting - by the authors who contributed to that topic in 2015.

The Tips for Teaching section this year focuses on the physical competences required for producing good handwriting – the ‘P Checks’. It follows on from an article in a former NHA journal by Gwen Dornan on the ‘S Rules’ for teaching handwriting. Written by Catherine Elsey and her OT colleagues, it sets out the process factors which need to be in place for handwriting movements to develop. Optimal performance is described as well as some ideas for correcting poor execution.

Our Handwriting in the Media section, written

once again by Ewan Clayton, is entitled ‘Who Needs Handwriting’. In it we see how the press cover all aspects of handwriting from the functional importance of children of being able to write fluently and fast, through the emotional/personal aspects of handwriting as expressed by some journalists, to the beauty of handwriting, featuring artists from the Smithsonian collection. Laraine Erlanderr-Lawrence has produced the Resources Review which includes writing materials and suggests some useful apps to support the teaching of handwriting. It is encouraging to see that despite the increasing use of technology, pen and pencil and paper manufacturers are producing an ever-growing range of exciting products to tempt novice writers and to enhance the writing experience for skilled writers.

The NHA News section showcases the work of the charity throughout the year and includes a report on another successful Members’ Day.

We again include reports on conferences which NHA members have attended through the year, particularly those which have relevance to handwriting. Lesley Harding, who has collated this section for two years, has now to step down from the post but we are very grateful to her for managing this section to date.

I would like to end by thanking all those who have contributed to the journal, both committee members and others. They all take their roles very seriously and we are proud of the high standard of content which they provide. We are also grateful to Karen Nicholas for organizing the printing of the journal and to Laraine Bateman for collecting all the material and for checking it. I hope you will find it an interesting and stimulating read.

Angela Webb. Editor.

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The use of technology to replace or support handwriting is increasingly debated, as technology continues to advance. In this section we include three research articles that consider the role of handwriting and new technology in some way. Providing support for the teaching of handwriting, the first article directly compares training handwriting or typing in pre-school children. This study by Kiefer and colleagues provides a comprehensive account of the effect of the writing tool on other aspects of literacy development, such as letter recognition, reading and writing. The second article questions what we really know about the writing process when handwriting on a tablet surface. Denis Alamargot and Marie France-Morin raise an important point for consideration – that using a pen on a glass (tablet) surface will inevitably require a different form of motor control than when writing on paper. This study took a developmental approach, pinpointing age-related differences (primary-aged children vs. adolescents) in handwriting performance on a tablet screen. Finally, the third article outlines the development of a new handwriting programme that is administered on tablet devices in the classroom. Using advanced methodology, Simonnet and Anquetil have devised an interactive programme that provides feedback on the execution of handwriting for children and teachers.

AbstractIn order to compare the effects of handwriting vs. typewriting training on reading and writing performance, we developed an intense training program for preschool children attending German kindergarten with 16 training sessions. Eight letters of the German alphabet were trained either by handwriting or by typing on a computer keyboard using closely matched letter learning games. Letter recognition, naming and writing performance as well as word reading and writing performance were assessed. Results did not indicate a superiority of typing training over handwriting training in any of these tasks. In contrast, a superiority of handwriting over typing training was found in word writing, and, as a tendency, in word reading. The results of our study, therefore, support theories of action-perception coupling assuming a facilitatory influence of sensory-motor representations established during handwriting on reading and writing.

Introduction Mastering literacy is a key skill to acquire for success at school and in professional life in societies (Gut, Reimann & Grob, 2012). In recent years, the mode of writing in adults, but also in children, has been subject of a dramatic change: Digital writing devices associated with the use of computers, tablet computers or mobile phones are increasingly replacing writing by hand (Radesky, Schumacher & Zuckerman, 2015). These changes of writing habits have been shown to be associated with less proficient basic hand-motor skills. In adults, a high frequency of keyboard use for producing written text in everyday life has been shown to relate to less precisely controlled arm–hand movements (Sulzenbrück et al., 2011). Given that children in our present days may get their first everyday writing experiences by typing on a computer or mobile phone much before they

ResearchArticles

Pen- or keyboard? The influence of the writing tool on reading and writing performance in preschool childrenMarkus Kiefera, Stefanie Schulerb, Carmen Mayerb, Natalie M. Trumppa, b, Katrin Hilleb & Steffi Sachseb, c, aUlm University, Department of Psychiatry, Ulm, Germany, bUlm University, ZNL Transfer Center for Neuroscience and Learning, Ulm, GermanycUniversity of Education Heidelberg, Department of Developmental Psychology, Heidelberg, GermanyEmail: Markus.Kiefer@uni-ulm.de

Research ArticlesCompiled by Emma Sumner

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master handwriting (Mangen & Velay, 2010), it is important to know how this dramatic change in writing habits in the digital age affects written language acquisition.

Regarding the influence of these modes of written language acquisition, handwriting vs. typing, two competing theoretical approaches are possible. The motor program associated with typing is obviously easier than that associated with handwriting. This easiness of typing on digital devices is taken as an argument in favor of writing training with typing to accelerate writing in young children or in children with less developed sensory-motor skills (Calhoun, 1985; Genlott & Gronlund, 2013; Genlott & Gronlund, 2016).

However, when comparing handwriting with typing, not only the easiness of the motor programs, but also their quality and the associated sensory-motor experiences (haptic, motor, visual etc.) must be considered. With respect to quality, handwriting and typing have fundamentally different properties (Mangen & Velay, 2010). Handwriting requires carefully producing the shape of each letter, whereas in typewriting the motor program is not related to the letter shape and, as a result, no such grapho-motor component is present. Hence, motor programs associated with handwriting provide an additional informative memory trace and may contribute to the representation of the shape of a letter (James & Engelhardt, 2012). Such interactions between action and perception are important elements of embodied or grounded cognition theories, which state that cognition is essentially grounded in modality-specific sensory and motor systems (Barsalou, Simmons, Barbey & Wilson, 2003; Kiefer & Pulvermüller, 2012). In line with this suggestion,

several training studies in preschool children and adults showed that handwriting training of new letters gave not only rise to better spelling accuracy (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990) or memory for words (Mangen, Anda, Oxborough & Bronnik, 2015), but also improved letter recognition in a subsequent test compared with typing training (Longcamp et al., 2008; Longcamp et al., 2005).

In order to contribute to this debate, we developed an intense training program for preschool children attending German kindergarten with 16 training sessions, which were distributed over four weeks on four days per week. This study is reported in full detail elsewhere (Kiefer et al., 2015). Letter recognition, letter naming and initial letter writing performance was assessed before and after training. Reading and writing performance of four-letter words, which could be formed from the trained eight letters, were tested only post-training.

MethodsFor our training study (for more details see, Kiefer et al., 2015), we recruited 23 children (12 female) aged between 4;10 and 6;3 years in two kindergartens within the area of Ulm, Germany. In Germany, children typically start to attend school at the age of six years. All children were healthy according to the parents’ reports. The sample was split in two matched groups, which were assigned to the handwriting (n = 12) and typing (n = 11) training conditions, respectively. Groups did not differ with regard to age, gender and phonological awareness. Prior to the study, the children had not received any formal writing education. However, some children were able to write their own names. Prior letter knowledge was comparable across groups.

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Figure 1. Overview of the training tasks used for written language training in preschool children. The same tasks were applied for typing and handwriting training. They differed only with regard to the writing mode (typing on a laptop keyboard vs. handwriting on a sheet of paper) in both training conditions. Adopted from Kiefer et al. (2015).

Across four weeks, eight letters of the German alphabet (L, I, O, A, M, S, T and E) were trained with letter games adopted from a German school booklet on literacy training (Reddig-Korn, Fritz, Mai & Schmitt, 2003). Training procedure was identical for both the handwriting and typing program, except for the writing medium. In the handwriting training program, children wrote the letter with a pen on a sheet of paper. In the typing program, children typed the letter on a notebook keyboard, where only the keys with letters were visible. Training sessions lasted about 25 min and took place on four days in each week resulting in a total of 16 sessions. Each week, two new letters were trained. On day one of each week, the first new letter was introduced, on day two the second one. In both training groups, the new letters were introduced to the children using a short story.

After this general introduction, children were trained individually on days one and two with the four letter learning games described below (see also Figure 1):

Letter zoo: Children learned to associate animal pictures with the corresponding initial letter of the animal names (e.g., “elephant”, and the letter “E”). Children were then presented with three pictures of animals and had to write or type four times the initial letter of the animal name on each picture (Fig. 1A).

Puzzle: The children received a puzzle consisting of four parts, either on a sheet of paper or on a notebook screen (Fig. 1B). The puzzle showed objects starting with one of the letters to be trained. There were three different objects per letter. Initially, all parts of the puzzle were shown with their backside up. Children were instructed to write/type the letter to be trained on the backside of each part (e.g., A).

Rhyme completion: The experimenter showed the children a sentence containing a pair of rhyming words either on a sheet of paper or on the computer screen (Fig. 1C). The children were told that the letter to be trained (e.g., M) is missing once in each word. A gap indicated the missing letter. Depending on the training group, the children wrote/typed the missing letter in the gap. If the child inserted the letter correctly, the experimenter read the sentence with the rhyming words aloud.

Letter tracing: Children received sheets of paper with the letter clearly printed above and printed with unconnected dots below (Fig. 1D). In both groups, the children were instructed to recognize the letter printed in dots and to reproduce it either by handwriting or by typing.

Days three and four of each week served to repeat

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all trained letters with a variation of letter learning games to render the training more motivational for the children. Training in weeks one to four was comparable, except for the introduction of new letters and for the repetition of an increasing number of letters (week 1: two letters, week 2: four letters, week 3: six letters, week 4: eight letters). During training, the children received feedback regarding the correctness of their response.

Test tasks of letter recognition, reading and writingLetter recognition. Each child was presented with a card showing one of the eight letters to be learnt among three visually similar pseudoletters. The task was to select the real letter among the distractors.

Letter naming. Each child was sequentially shown all 26 letters of the alphabet on a card ordered by difficulty (according to Reddig-Korn et al., 2003). The child was instructed to say “stop”, when the letter was familiar, and asked to name the letter.

Word reading. Each child received cards with the words OMI (‘grandma’), TAL (‘valley’), TESA (‘tape’), which were formed from the trained letters. The child was told to read each word aloud.

Letter writing. The experimenter sequentially read the trained letters to the child aloud. Each of the letters was read aloud twice in random order (L, T, S, I, A, O, T, M, I, E, O, L, M, S, E, A). The child was instructed to write down the letter on a sheet of paper or to type it on the keyboard depending on the training program.

Free letter writing. Each child was instructed to write with a pen all familiar letters on a sheet of

paper. In this task, only the trained eight letters were analyzed. Of course, possible differential training effects between groups cannot be unequivocally interpreted in this task because in the typing group writing mode at test differed from that at training.

Word writing. The experimenter read the four words LILI (the name “Lili”), OLI (the name “Oli”), SALAMI (‘salami’), TASTE (‘key’) aloud at a slow pace. The child was told to write or to type the word depending on the training program.

ResultsAn overview of the test results as a function of training mode (typing vs. handwriting) is given in Figure 2. For the full detail of results, we refer to the original publication of the study (Kiefer et al., 2015).

Letter recognition (Figure 2A). Both groups showed increased letter recognition performance post-training compared to pre-training (writing group: t(11) = 2.994, p = .006; typing group: t(10) = 3.108, p = .006), but this training effect did not differ between groups (t(21) = 0.299, p = .384).

Letter naming (Figure 2B). Training increased letter naming performance (writing group: t(11) = 3.276, p = .004; typing group: t(10) = 5.186, p < .001) in each group, but this increment did not differ between groups (t(21) = 0.426, p = .674).

Word reading (Figure 2C). Word reading was only assessed after training. There was a tendency for superior reading performance in the handwriting group compared with the typing group (t(14) = 1.364, p = .097). Note that accuracy distribution in the handwriting group ranged from zero to perfect performance (all three words named correctly) and was much larger than accuracy

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distribution in the typing group, which varied between zero and one correct response.

Figure 2. Letter recognition, reading and writing performance of the preschool children in the typing vs. handwriting training conditions. Shown are mean scores (number of correct responses) or mean percentage scores (relative frequency of correct responses) on the y axis. The bars indicate the standard error of the mean within each condition.

Letter writing (Figure 2D). Letter writing carried out either by handwriting or typing did not differ between groups (t(21) = 0.097, p = .462). This test was only administered after training.

Free letter writing (Figure 2E). Training increased free letter writing performance in each group (t(11) = 4.927, p <.001; t(10) = 1.796, p = .05). Handwriting training resulted in a significantly greater increment of performance compared with

typing training (t(21) = 1.76, p = .047, d = 0.63). Results obtained before training confirm that initial letter writing knowledge was comparable for the handwriting and typing groups. However, as differences between handwriting and typing training groups cannot be interpreted after training due to a differential match between training (handwriting vs. typing) and test mode (handwriting only), we do not further discuss findings of this task.

Word writing (Figure 2F). Word writing carried out by handwriting was superior to word writing carried out by typing (t(21) = 1.744, p = .048, d = 0.76). This test was only administered after training.

DiscussionWe investigated the influence of two modes of written language training on letter recognition, reading and writing performance in matched groups of preschool children (Kiefer et al., 2015). In one group of children eight letters were trained by writing them with a pen on a sheet of paper, whereas in the other group training involved typing the same set of letters on a computer keyboard. Overall, the results of our study were relatively clear-cut. In none of the test tasks administered to the children after training, did we find superior performance after typing training compared with handwriting training. Even in tasks such as single letter writing, in which the easier motor program associated with typing could be most advantageous, accuracy was not higher in the typing than in the handwriting training group. Thus, our results are inconsistent with the notion that the easiness of the motor program associated with typing is beneficial for written language training (e.g., Genlott & Gronlund, 2013; Genlott & Gronlund, 2016), at least in the present study focused on children without disabilities.

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However, results of our study at least partially support embodiment or grounded cognition theories because superior accuracy for handwriting training was found in several word reading and writing tasks. We found superior word writing accuracy after handwriting training compared with typing training. This replicates earlier work (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990) and suggests that sensory-motor memory traces acquired during handwriting training support spelling of words, presumably due to improved memory for letters (Longcamp, Zerbato-Poudou & Velay, 2005) and words (Mangen et al., 2015). Unlike our findings and those by Cunningham and Stanovich (1990), other studies found comparable writing performance after handwriting and typing training (Ouellette & Tims, 2014; Vaughn, Schumm & Gordon, 1992). Presumably, the divergent results can be explained by the different length of the training program (16 days as in our study vs. one or a few days), age and literacy status of the children (largely preliterate preschool children as in our study vs. elementary school children), training material (words vs. pseudowords) or test tasks (writing/typing as in our study or multiple choice recognition memory test).

In our study, word reading accuracy tended to be higher in the handwriting group, although this difference was not statistically significant, presumably due to the small sample size and the relatively large variability in the handwriting group. Nevertheless, in line with embodiment theories, this observation suggests that the motor program associated with handwriting facilitates word recognition compared with typewriting.

In contrast to our expectations and to previous findings (Longcamp et al., 2008; Longcamp et al., 2005), handwriting training did not improve letter recognition and letter naming performance compared with typing training in our study

(Kiefer et al., 2015). Overall, letter recognition performance before training was relatively high even in these preschool children, presumably because children were already familiarized with some letters earlier in their lives. This reduces the likelihood to observe differential effects of the two training regimens.

Interpretation of the results of our study is limited by the small sample size in both training groups. Despite this limitation, our work demonstrates that experimental training studies in preschool children are a promising way to study modes of literacy training within naturalistic kindergarten settings. Our study clearly demonstrates that the easiness of the motor program associated with typing on digital devices does not facilitate written language acquisition compared with handwriting training. Of course, our results do not preclude the possibility that typing on digital devices might be useful to support writing in children with motor impairments that affect handwriting. Most importantly, we found that children of the handwriting training group performed better than those of the typing group particularly in tasks involving reading and writing at the word level. Our results therefore support embodiment theories assuming a facilitatory influence of sensory-motor representations established during handwriting on reading and writing performance.

ReferencesBarsalou, L. W., Simmons, W. K., Barbey, A. K., & Wilson, C. D. (2003). Grounding conceptual knowledge in modality-specific systems. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 84-91.Calhoun, M. L. (1985). Typing contrasted with handwriting in language arts instruction for moderately mentally-retarded students. Education and Training in Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, 20, 48-52.Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1990). Early spelling acquisition - Writing beats the computer. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 159-162.

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Genlott, A. A., & Gronlund, A. (2013). Improving literacy skills through learning reading by writing: The iWTR method presented and tested. Computers & Education, 67, 98-104.Genlott, A. A., & Gronlund, A. (2016). Closing the gaps - Improving literacy and mathematics by ict- enhanced collaboration. Computers & Education, 99, 68-80.Gut, J., Reimann, G., & Grob, A. (2012). Kognitive, sprachliche, mathematische und sozial- emotionale Kompetenzen als Prädiktoren späterer schulischer Leistungen:. Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie, 26, 213–220.James, K. H., & Engelhardt, L. (2012). The effects of handwriting experience on functional brain development in pre-literate children. Trends in neuroscience and education, 1, 32-42.Kiefer, M., & Pulvermüller, F. (2012). Conceptual representations in mind and brain: Theoretical developments, current evidence and future directions. Cortex, 48, 805-825.Kiefer, M., Schuler, S., Mayer, C., Trumpp, N. M., Hille, K., & Sachse, S. (2015). Handwriting or typewriting? The influence of pen- or keyboard- based writing training on reading and writing performance in preschool children. Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 11, 136-146.Longcamp, M., Boucard, C., Gilhodes, J. C., Anton, J. L., Roth, M., Nazarian, B., & Velay, J. L. (2008). Learning through hand- or typewriting influences visual recognition of new graphic shapes: Behavioral and functional imaging evidence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 802-815.Longcamp, M., Zerbato-Poudou, M. T., & Velay, J. L. (2005). The influence of writing practice on letter recognition in preschool children: A comparison between handwriting and typing. Acta Psychologica, 119, 67-79.Mangen, A., Anda, L. G., Oxborough, G. H., & Bronnik, K. (2015). Handwriting versus keyboard writing: Effect on word recall. Journal of Writing Research, 7, 227-247.Mangen, A., & Velay, J.-L. (2010). Digitizing literacy: Reflections on the haptics of writing. In M. H. Zadeh (Ed.), Advances in Haptics (pp. 385-402). Rijeka: InTech.Ouellette, G., & Tims, T. (2014). The write way to spell: Printing vs. typing effects on orthographic learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 5.Radesky, J. S., Schumacher, J., & Zuckerman, B. (2015). Mobile and interactive media use by young

children: The good, the bad, and the unknown. Pediatrics Perspectives, 135, 1-3.Reddig-Korn, B., Fritz, M., Mai, M., & Schmitt, F. (2003). Das Zauberalphabet. Übungen. Leipzig: Ernst Klett Grundschulverlag GmbH.Vaughn, S., Schumm, J. S., & Gordon, J. (1992). Early spelling acquisition - Does writing really beat the computer? Learning Disability Quarterly, 15, 223-228.

Abstract. In this article, we provide a summary of an original and recently published study (see Alamargot & Morin, 2015, for details) aiming to ascertain how handwriting with a plastic-tipped pen on the screen of a digital tablet, as opposed to handwriting on a sheet of paper with a ballpoint pen, affects grapho-motor execution in students. Twenty-eight children from Grades Two and Nine (mean age 7 and 14 years, respectively) were asked to handwrite the alphabet and their names and surnames under the two conditions. Kinematics were recorded using the tablet, controlled by Eye and Pen software. Results showed that handwriting on the tablet surface with a plastic-tipped pen primarily affected pen pauses in the second graders and pen movements in the ninth graders, suggesting a disturbance in letter trajectory calculation in the younger participants and reduced control of muscular adjustment in the older children. This pioneering study contributes to our

ResearchArticles

New handwriting technologies: how the tablet screen surface affects students’ graphomotor executionDenis Alamargota & Marie-France Morinb

a Human and Artificial Cognitions (CHArt) lab, University of East Paris-Créteil, Paris, Franceb Research Chair in Reading and Writing Learning in Young Children (CREALEC), Faculty of Education, Sherbrooke University, Quebec, CanadaEmail : Denis.Alamargot@u-pec.fr.

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understanding of the effects of introducing new writing technologies in schools and we discuss how it is disconcerting to see just how little handwriting research comparing pen and paper with digital tools (e.g., keyboard and computer) has been published.

Handwriting across technologiesAs Caporossi and Alamargot explained back in 2004, today’s handwriters, in addition to the traditional pen and paper, can use a range of tools, including typewriter keyboard and paper, screen, keyboard and mouse, and finger or stylus and tablet, to produce a written trace that their readers subsequently have to decode. It was the Sumerians who invented writing, using a reed pen (stylus) to inscribe characters in clay tablets. Given that the modern day pen works on the same principles, it can, by extension, be described as an ancestral and universal means of writing. With this tool, writers have to create all the signs (letters, spaces, punctuation) themselves, and are responsible for ensuring that the finished product is legible. With the advent of mechanization, printing presses and later typewriters took over the chore of producing the letters and standardized their shapes. Although typewriters controlled the shape, spacing and alignment of the letters, writers still had to generate the layout, but even this was taken out of their hands when computerization came along. By dematerializing the written trace, word processors freed writers from the one remaining chore of hard returns and word breaks, which were automatically calculated as the text was being typed. The introduction of touchscreen tablets further modified writing conditions, maintaining the benefits of word processing but allowing for direct manual interventions (with or without a stylus), as with a pen and paper.

Handwriting on a smooth tablet surface: what is the impact on pupils?The advent of new technologies in schools means that students now have to write in different media using a variety of tools (e.g., keyboard, virtual keyboard (tablet), pen or finger on a tablet surface), and no longer just with pen(cil) and paper (see Wollscheid, Sjaastad, Tømte, & Løver, 2016). While this new technological reality may arouse fresh interest in writing, it does not necessarily make the activity itself any easier, and may even impose new cognitive constraints that are not immediately perceptible. This can be precisely the problem when students use digital tablets, writing on the screen with a plastic-tipped pen. Studies assessing the effect of the grapho-motor constraints imposed by the particularly smooth tablet surface, are still few and far between probably because this tool has only very recently been introduced into the classroom. Nonetheless, as Wann and Nimmo-Smith (1991) pointed out, we all find it hard to write on a smooth and slippery surface, such as when we sign our name on the back of a credit card. Writing with a plastic-tipped pen on the glass surface of a tablet produces a similar sensation of sliding over a slippery surface and, we can assume, that this disturbs the fine motor control required for adjusting pen movements.

Here, we provide a summary of an original and recently published study (see Alamargot & Morin, 2015, for details). In this study, we sought to ascertain how handwriting with a plastic-tipped pen on the screen of a digital tablet, as opposed to handwriting on a sheet of paper with a ballpoint pen, affects grapho-motor execution in Grade Two and Grade Nine French-speaking students. We assumed that, by modifying the perceptual (i.e., propriokinaesthetic) feedback that students are accustomed to receive when they write on paper in the classroom, the smooth surface of a tablet

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screen, coupled with a plastic-tipped pen, would make it more difficult for them to perform their handwriting movements. Furthermore, based on studies of the development of handwriting skills, we hypothesized this modification in feedback would differently disturb younger and older students (i.e., before and after motor programme acquisition). Because younger students rely more heavily on perceptual feedback to form letters, the reduced proprio-kinaesthetic information available to them would presumably lead them to pause longer between letter segments, in order to work out how to assemble them. By contrast, owing to their mastery of motor programmes, more advanced writers (above the age of 9 10 years) would be able to produce larger letter segments more fluently and without any major pauses while writing (Accardo, Genna & Borean, 2013). As the propriokinaesthetic system continues to contribute to the implementation of motor programmes and the ability to modify and correct erroneous trajectories (Bard, Turrell, Fleury & Teasdale, 1999), we reasoned that the change brought about by the screen/plastic tip combination would induce adjustments to pen movements by older students. We predicted that they would seek to maximize proprio-kinaesthetic feedback by increasing the pressure they exerted on the pen and, possibly, the size of the letters they produced, thereby increasing their speed of movement.

Experiment details To test the hypotheses, we ran a two-part experiment. The first part served to confirm the very low friction coefficient of the tablet surface versus a sheet of paper. Friction can be defined as the force resisting the relative motion of material solid surfaces sliding against each other (kinetic friction). Like Wann and Nimmo-Smith (1991), we used an articulated arm that held the pen on the surface and constrained its path. The

translational force exerted on the pen to move it was generated by a 40-g load, while vertical pressure was exerted on the pen by adding a series of weights (10, 20, 30, then 40 g) (see Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Apparatus used to confirm the very low friction coefficient of the tablet surface (reproduced here with permission from Human Movement Science).

Results indicated that the screen surface (written on with a plastic tip) had a far lower friction coefficient than the 80 g/m² paper surface (written on with a ballpoint tip), generating a higher pen movement speed (mean: 47.27 vs. 5.18 cm/s) for the same translational force. This difference was observed whatever the pressure exerted on the pen. This first part of the experiment confirms that handwriting with a plastic-tip on a screen is far from being harmless.

It remains then to evaluate the consequences of such lack of friction - and accordingly in the proprio-kinaesthetic feedback, on children handwriting performance. This question led us to run the second part of our experiment, in which we asked second and ninth graders (UK equivalents: Year 3 and Year 10) to write out (i) their name and surname twice, starting with uppercase letters (see Pontart et al., 2013), and (ii) the letters of the alphabet in joined lowercase (Abbott & Berninger, 1993). In both cases, students were invited to write in their usual handwriting, as quickly and accurately as possible. A total of 14 second graders (4 boys, 10

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girls; mean age = 7.53 years) and 14 ninth graders (7 boys, 7 girls; mean age = 14.45 years) took part in this experiment. They came from three schools on the outskirts of the French city of Poitiers. None of the children had ever written with a pen on a screen tablet before. None had repeated a grade, nor displayed any learning disabilities or disorder of fine motor skill.

The two writing tasks were performed on an LCD digitizing screen tablet (Wacom Cintiq 21UX) linked to a laptop computer (Apple MacBook) and recorded using Eye and Pen® software (Alamargot, Chesnet, Dansac, & Ros, 2006; Chesnet & Alamargot, 2005). Eye and Pen® records eye movements (eye positions provided by an oculometer at regular intervals) and pen movements on a graphic tablet (either classic or with an inbuilt screen). For the purposes of the present study, we recorded the signals generated by the tablet, but without the associated eye movements.

The students wrote directly on the tablet, using a pen (Wacom InkPen) with a plastic tip (no ink), and on an A3 sheet of 80 g/m² paper placed on the tablet, in which case the same pen was equipped with a ballpoint. They performed the task twice: first in the paper ballpoint configuration, and second in the tablet plastic tip configuration. This order changed from one participant to the next. The Eye and Pen® software recorded the position of the pen tip on the tablet screen/sheet of paper (x-axis and y-axis) and the state of the tip (with or without pressure) in real time. Associated with a timer (in ms), these measures allowed us to calculate the main writing kinematics parameters, including letter production duration, pen speed, and pause (motionless pen) duration and frequency. In addition to these temporal criteria, we assessed the legibility of letters using Evaluation Tool of Children’s Handwriting (ETCH; Amundson, 1995) criteria.

Main results of the studyResults revealed an effect of writing surface for each measure we considered. Handwriting on the screen tablet with a plastic tip led to a decrease in letter legibility (for the first name surname task) and an increase in letter size (for both the alphabet and first name surname tasks), regardless of age. Concerning the interaction with grade, our hypothesis of different handwriting disturbances in second versus ninth graders was generally confirmed. More specifically, the effect of surface on pen movement and pausing differed according to grade. Writing on a screen with a plastic tip, as opposed to a sheet of paper with a ballpoint, only affected movement in ninth graders, increasing both pen pressure and pen speed, whereas in second graders it had an effect on pauses, increasing their duration. These results were coherent with our hypothesis and the development of grapho-motor execution and motor programme mastery.

Second graders: Problems calculating letter segment trajectories’The pattern of results for second graders suggested that they had greater difficulty calculating segment trajectories when they handwrote on the screen tablet surface with a plastic tip. By dramatically changing the proprio-kinaesthetic information available to them, the very low friction generated by the tablet plastic tip combination forced these students to pause for longer between segments (i.e., between the various parts (strokes) of the letters, and between letters). This extra time was probably needed to carefully analyse the previous segment of the letter (formed using unusual information) and adjust the next one accordingly. Despite these pauses, children still produced larger and less legible letters, suggesting poorer motor control in this method.

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Ninth graders: Problems regulating handwriting gestures.By contrast, results for the ninth graders indicated that they had problems with the online regulation of initial motor commands (Bard et al., 1999). To compensate for the decrease in proprio-kinaesthetic feedback caused by writing with the plastic-tipped pen on the smoother tablet surface, they pressed down harder on their pen, amplified their movement (letter size) and increased their pen speed. Even so, this online adaptation of movement kinematics proved insufficient, and the resulting letters were therefore less legible and pause durations slightly longer, albeit less than for second graders.

What these results tell usThese results indicate that handwriting on the tablet surface with a plastic-tipped pen primarily affected pauses in the second graders and pen movements in the ninth graders, suggesting that letter and its constitutive segments trajectory calculation was disturbed in the younger participants and control of muscular adjustment was reduced in the older children. The latter result was recently replicated in adults (whose grapho-motor programmes are supposed to be highly automatized) by Gerth and colleagues (2016), confirming that even for expert hand-writers, the use of a plastic tip on a tablet surface can affect gesture control.

To conclude, technology is not always synonymous with progress in handwritingThis study contributes to our understanding of the effects of introducing new writing technologies in schools, particularly handwriting on a screen with a pen. It is disconcerting to see just how little handwriting research comparing pen and paper with digital tools (e.g., keyboard and computer) has been published. In their recent literature

review, Wollscheid, Sjaastad and Tømte (2016) listed only a dozen scientific studies assessing the cognitive changes introduced by digital devices, compared to handwriting with a pen and paper. Results so far argue against these new technologies, as handwriting with pen and paper consistently comes out on top. This traditional method appears not only to be less cognitively costly than keyboard use for children (Connelly et al., 2007), but also to facilitate letter learning and recognition among both children and adults. In the experiments they conducted with adults, Longcamp et al. (2006, 2008) found that single-letter recognition was faster and more efficient when these letters had been learned in handwriting versus typewriting sessions. In the case of learning through handwriting, brain activation analyses indicate that the motor areas recruited for drawing the letters are also activated during reading. The handwriting movements memorized while learning the letters therefore contribute to their subsequent recognition. This facilitation effect has also been demonstrated in children by Longcamp, Zerbato-Poudou, and Velay (2005), who showed that pre-schoolers who have learned letters by drawing rather than typing them have better letter recognition performances.

Lastly, although technological advances suggest that typing will one day supplant handwriting, we hold the view that the keyboard is simply a staging post between handwriting on paper and handwriting in a digital medium. Invented more than 100 years ago with the first typewriters, and recycled to digitize handwriting in the IT age, there is nothing modern about the keyboard. Indeed, it has changed very little since its invention, even though typewriters are now obsolete. The order of the keys (AZERTY or QWERTY), for instance, was established not for the typist’s convenience but to keep apart letters that frequently followed each other so that their levers would not jam. We have therefore inherited a flawed keyboard

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which, moreover was designed for adult users, not young learners. We believe that the future of writing lies not with a keyboard but with a tablet designed for handwriting probably with a stylus, a tool dating back thousands of years. It is therefore important to design software that can automatically recognize the letters produced by individual users and convert them into digital characters. Rapid progress is being made in this area, but we also need to improve the tablet surface, so that it becomes just as practical to write on as a sheet of paper. It was with this in mind that we conducted the present pioneering study.

ReferencesAbbott, R., & Berninger, V. (1993). Structural equation modeling of relationships among developmental skills and writing skills in primary and intermediate grade writers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 478-508.Accardo, A.P., Genna, M., & Borean, M. (2013). Development, maturation and learning influence on handwriting kinematics, Human Movement Science, 32, 136-146.Alamargot, D., & Morin, M.-F. (2015). Does handwriting on a tablet screen impact students’ graphomotor execution? A comparison between grades 2 and 9. Human Movement Science, 44, 32-41. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2015.08.011 Alamargot, D., Chesnet, D., Dansac, C., & Ros, C. (2006). Eye and Pen: a new device for studying reading during writing. Behavior Research Methods, 38(2), 287299.Amundson, S. (1995). Evaluation tool of children’s handwriting. Homer, AK: OT Kids. Bard, C., Turrell, Y., Fleury, M., & Teasdale, N. (1999). Deafferentation and pointing with visual double- step perturbations. Experimental Brain Research, 125, 410-416.Caporossi, G., & Alamargot, D. (2014). L’écriture manuscrite : analyse comparative et méthodes d’études en temps réel. L’exemple du logiciel Eye and Pen. In C. Leblay & G. Caporossi (Eds). Le temps de l’écriture : enregistrements et représentations (pp.125-146). Coll. “Sciences du langage : carrefours et points de vue”

Louvain-la-neuve : Academia-Bruylant.Chesnet, D., & Alamargot, D. (2005). Analyse en temps réel des activités oculaires et grapho- motrices du scripteur: intérêt du dispositif “Eye and Pen”. L’Année Psychologique, 105 (3), 477- 520.Connelly, V., Gee, D., & Walsh, E. (2007). A comparison of keyboarded and handwritten composition and the relationship with transcription speed. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77 (2), 479- 492.Gerth, S., Dolk T., Klassert A., Fliesser M., Fischer M.H., Nottbusch G., & Festman, J. (2016). Adapting to the surface: A comparison of handwriting measures when writing on a tablet computer and on paper. Human Movement Science, 48, 62-73.Longcamp, M., Boucard, C., Gilhodes, J.C., Anton, J.L., Roth, M., Nazarian, B., & Velay, J.L. (2008). Learning through Hand- or Typewriting Influences Visual Recognition of New Graphic Shapes: Behavioral and Functional Imaging Evidence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20(5), 802–815. Longcamp, M., Boucard, C., Gilhodes, J.-C., & Velay, J.- L. (2006). Remembering the orientation of newly learned characters depends on the associated writing knowledge: A comparison between handwriting and typing. Human Movement Science, 25 (4-5), 646-656.Longcamp, M., Zerbato-Poudou, M.-T., & Velay, J.- L. (2005). The influence of writing practice on letter recognition in preschool children: A comparison between handwriting and typing. Acta Psychologica, 119 (1), 67-79.Pontart, V., Bidet-Ildei, C., Lambert, E., Morisset, P., Flouret, L., & Alamargot, D. (2013). Influence of handwriting skills during spelling during primary and lower secondary grades. Frontiers in psychology, 4, pp. 1-9. DOI : 10.3389/ fpsyg.2013.00818.Wann, J. & Nimmo-Smith, I. (1991). The control of pen pressure in handwriting: A subtle point. Human Movement Science, 10, 223-246.Wollscheid, S., Sjaastad, J., & Tømte, C. (2016). The impact of digital devices vs. pen(cil) and paper on primary school students’ writing skills - A research review. Computers & Education, 95, 19 35. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2015.12.001Wollscheid, S., Sjaastad, J., Tømte, C., & Løver, N. (2016). The effect of pen and paper or tablet

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computer on early writing – A pilot study. Computers & Education, 98, 70 80.

AbstractIntuiScript is an innovative project developing a digital workbook providing feedback during the handwriting learning process for children from three to seven years old. In this context, the paper presents a method to analyse handwriting quality that responds to the expectations of the IntuiScript educational scenario: on-line and real time feedback for children, an automatic detection of children’s mistakes which then guide the pedagogical progression, and a precise analysis of children’s writing which can be saved to help the teacher to understand their skills and difficulties. This paper presents the first stage of results from this project, considering the analysis of block letters and cursive words. Block letters were analysed with regards to four different criteria global, shape, order and direction, that are merged on a single score called multi-criteria. Cursive words were analysed as letters, bigrams and trigrams with a global criterion. Results shows the multi-criteria architecture for block letters is able to precisely characterise mistakes made by children. Finally, using this program, coherent scores can be provided for letters, bigrams and trigrams of cursive words.

IntroductionThis paper examines handwriting quality analysis as part of an innovative project, IntuiScript1,2, which is developing a digital workbook to help

teachers and children from 3-7 years of age during the handwriting learning process. The main objective of the IntuiScript project is to offer an advanced digital writing experience at school by using tablet and tactile digital devices (with finger touch and stylus pen, see Figure 1). This project: (1) allows children to work in autonomy with online and real time feedback; (2) proposes pedagogical exercises that are adapted to the level of the children based on the automatic analysis of their handwriting; and (3) provides precise off-line analysis of children’s writing (i.e., order, direction, shape) to help teachers to understand children’s writing skills and difficulties.

Figure 1. First in-class experiment of the IntuiScript project (a) with tablet tactile devices, and (b) example of writing the word ‘Lundi’ (e.g., ‘Monday’)._______________________________________For more information about the project, see: http://intuiscript.com/1,2

https://www-intuidoc.irisa.fr/en/projet-intuiscript/1,2

Related WorkWriting is a fundamental skill that is necessary for learning and conveying knowledge. In the literature, handwriting quality is related to legibility and kinematics (Dinehart et al., 2015). The former corresponds to letter shape and its associated readiness (readability). The latter concentrates on the writing process (e.g. order, direction, fluidity) that must be efficient to be able

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Handwriting Quality Analysis of Block Letters and Cursive WordsDamien Simonnet & Eric AnquetilINSA Rennes, Avenue des Buttes de Coesmes, F-35043 RennesIRISA, CNRS UMR 6074, Campus de Beaulieu, F-35042 RennesEmail: damien.simonnet@irisa.fr

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to produce fast and legible text. More precisely, a written symbol is composed of strokes marked by the pen stopping and being lifted from the page (see Figure 4b). An elementary stroke is defined as a sub-stroke delimited by singularity points, and correspond to elements such as line, half circle (see Figure 4c). Thus, the writing process requires three central skills: a complete visual representation of each letter, a recognition of elementary strokes in letters, and the ability to reproduce a letter as a sequence of elementary strokes respecting the direction (Schickedanz, 1999).

There are two typical applications resulting from handwriting analysis: medical and education systems. In these two streams, a range of measures has been put forward to assess handwriting quality. For example, Guinet et al., (2010) focus on the kinematic aspect (i.e., velocity, duration, fluency, pauses) to detect handwriting pathologies. Whereas, Jolly et al., (2013) analyse handwriting velocity to identify children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). From a developmental perspective, Accardo et al., (2013) studied handwriting kinematics of children writing on digital tablets. They considered a number of features (e.g., number of strokes per letter, peak velocities and pen lift duration) and found that handwriting is related to four important kinematic domains: velocity, spatial arrangement, automation and motor planning. Similarly, Falk et al., (2011) used five primitives – legibility, form, alignment, size and space - to quantify handwriting proficiency in children. Other research considering the production of Chinese characters has identified three types of errors: stroke production errors (i.e., stroke reversal, linking of separate strokes, broken strokes), stroke sequence errors (i.e., wrong sequencing of components) and stroke relationship errors (i.e., relative length and position; Hu et al., 2009; Tan, 2002).

In sum, approaches for medical systems (Accardo et al., 2013; Guinet et al., 2010; Jolly et al., 2013) use mainly the kinematic aspect, by opposition to educational systems (Falk et al., 2011; Hu et al., 2009) that pay more attention to legibility features and use simple kinematic features (e.g., velocity and acceleration). Legibility is often evaluated with low-level features related to the letter recognition task that makes it difficult to evaluate quantitatively the correctness of a criterion (e.g., shape in Kulesh et al., 2001). This paper presents handwriting analysers for educational systems applied to block letters and cursive words.

Our ApproachA user-centred approach is taken that includes several cycles of conception followed by experiments. Feedback from children and teachers, related to these experiments, are used to improve the next version of the education scenario. There are two pedagogical progressions depending on the abilities of the child: the block (single) letters where the writing process is known, and the cursive writing that they are learning. Designed by educational experts, and illustrated by Figure 2, the scenario for each progression is based on three hierarchical steps adapted to the skills and difficulties of each child. It is important to note that the automatic adaptation of pedagogical exercises is only possible with online handwriting analysis, such as the one presented in this paper.

Block letters: First, based on video examples containing rules about shape, order and direction, children have to write each letter of a given word. On-line feedback with a colour scale indicator is given (see Figure 2 g, h, i, j). In the application, examples of letters correspond to dynamic animations that can be repeated as many times as children want.

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Figure 2. Hierarchical methodology that enables children to be autonomous. For block letters, the analysis is first done on letters of a word (a), then on single letters (b) and primitives (c), if required. For the cursive letter, the analysis is first done on a letter (d), then on bigrams (e) and trigrams (f). Feedback is given with a colour scale indicator drawn under each gesture with the following colouring code: very good (green with a dark star) (g), good (green) (h), average (orange) (i) and incorrect (red) (j).

Similar to other assessment tools (Falk et al., 2011; Kulesh et al., 2001; Li-Tsang et al., 2013), the proposed approach evaluates the quality of a handwritten movement with regards to a reference model using intra-class and inter-class scores (see Figure 3). For example, the intra-class score evaluates the similarity of a given sample U

with the analysed model (i.e., U). In contrast, the inter-class scores evaluates the confusion with other classes (i.e., how a sample U is different from another model, e.g. V). These two aspects are fundamental for online handwriting analysis, which is different from handwriting recognition tools that use only the inter-class scores.

Then, if the system detects some incorrectly written letters, it proposes to children to work on individual letters (see Figure 2b). On-line feedback allows them to measure autonomously their progress. Finally, if the system detects that the handwriting is still incorrect, an exercise with letter primitives (e.g. horizontal/vertical/slant line, loop) is

given, with the same approach as individual letters (see Figure 2c).

Cursive writing: Children work first on an individual letter (see Figure 2d). Then, if the written production is correct, they work on bigrams and trigrams (see Figure 2e and 2f).

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(d) Letter (f) Trigram(e) Bigram

(a) Word (b) Letter (c) Primitive

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Figure 3. An Analysis of an example U. The analysis approach is based on two complementary aspects: intra-class (i.e. the similarity of the example with the analysed model: U) and inter-class (i.e. the difference with other models indicating by a confusion degree of other classes, e.g. V) scores.

Features and Classifiers designed to recognise Handwriting Patterns Delaye and colleagues (2013) use HBF49, which is a generic set of features designed for gesture recognition. It is composed of dynamic features that depends on the writing process (e.g., starting and ending positions, proportion of down-strokes trajectory, angle of the initial vector, inflexions), and visual features that focus on the appearance of the writing results (e.g., 2D histogram of point). This set of features captures multiple criteria: shape, order, direction and global. A classifier is acquired with an incremental supervised algorithm (Almaksour & Anquetil, 2011; Almaksour & Anquetil, 2013) that allows the computation of intra-class and inter-class scores. In the rest of the paper, the analysis score refers to the fusion of these scores. These algorithms are incremental algorithms to let teachers expand models with their own drawing but, for now, this aspect is outside the scope of this paper.

Multi-Criteria Analysis of Block Letter WritingThe handwriting analysis of block letters is

based on four criteria: global, shape, order and direction. Order and direction criteria are correct if the order and direction of elementary strokes (see Figure 4c) are correct. Order is determined by identifying the order of median strokes (see Figure 4d) in a gesture. Direction uses features based on local changes of directions. Finally, the multi-criteria classifier combines the results of global, shape, order and direction classifiers to give an overall result relating to all of these aspects combined.

Figure 4. The original gesture from a digital device (a), and its decomposition in strokes (delimited by pen up) (b) and elementary strokes (c) with the drawing direction and order. Median strokes are represented by thicker lines in (d).

Analysis of Cursive WritingThe analysis of cursive writing concentrates on the development of an analyser providing a global feedback to children because errors such as order and direction are less common with this type of writing. First, based on descending areas and singularity points (see Figure 5b), letter segments (see Figure 5c) are extracted, as in Anquetil et al (1997). Then, the global approach used for block letters is improved by adding features related to

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descending areas which are stable parts in the cursive writing process.

Figure 5. The original gesture (a) and the extraction of descending areas (lines in orange) and singularity points (cross) (b) that are used to extract the segmentation (c).

Experimentation and ResultsWe now present results after the first experimental trial3,4, of the block letters scenario conducted in four preschools with 171 children. During a two hour session, with workshops lasting 20 minutes each, groups of 7-8 children were writing block letters that formed words that would spell the days of the week. They received automatic feedback from the colour scale indicator (as shown in Figure 2), reflecting the correctness of the written letter.

Before discussing the qualitative and quantitative results of the handwriting analysis tool, it is important to note feedback from children about this first experimentation with tactile digital devices. In-class experiments demonstrated that children quickly get familiar with the application and tried to improve the evaluation score. Moreover, the personalised feedback allowed children to progress with autonomy at their own

speed, and to stay concentrated during the whole session of 20 minutes, which is often difficult for young children. Some of them were so involved that they did not want to stop.

(a) Models (b) Analysis Results

Figure 6. Qualitative results with the multi-criteria scores. (a) shows the model and (b) the analysis results and where strokes are coloured from the first to the third with red, blue and green (the begin and end of each stroke is represented respectively with a circle and a cross). S, D and O indicates respectively an error of shape, order and direction relatively to models chosen.

Figure 6 shows quantitative results with a colour scale indicator decreasing with errors made by children (i.e. shape, order and direction). In this figure, arbitrary weights have been chosen for each criteria in the multi-criteria score

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(50% global, 30% shape, 15% order and 15% direction) but teachers can customise the weight of each criterion to give the best feedback to children depending on their abilities and the teachers’ pedagogical target for this exercise. For instance, teachers can choose to work mainly on the shape for the legibility, or to emphasise order and direction which are important skills in preparation for cursive writing.

(a) di

(b) lun

Figure 7. Qualitative results on the cursive writing.

Experiments related to the cursive analysis are still done with ‘days of the week’ words. Qualitative results illustrated by Figure 7 show the classifier decreases the confidence score with the deformation of the cursive sequence.

ConclusionThis paper has presented a multi-criteria analysis of block letters and a global analysis of words applied in the context of the innovative project IntuiScript, which focuses on the development of a digital workbook to help teachers and children during the handwriting learning process. Results on a dataset collected in four preschools with 171 children have shown significant

improvements compared to the global classifier for block letters. The independent analysis of each criteria is only given to teachers to help them during the intervention to identify the type of errors produced by children. Finally, feedback of children and teachers about the use of tactile digital devices in school has been very positive.

The next steps in IntuiScript project will be the analysis of fluidity, which is a fundamental criterion to characterise cursive writing and the introduction of an authoring mode. More specifically, this mode will allow teachers to define their own models by firstly asking the teacher to draw letter samples and secondly by consolidating with child samples collected during the remediation to adjust the model to the teacher expectations.

AcknowledgementsThis work takes place in the context of a three-year research project founded by the French government as part of innovative projects (BPI): IntuiScript (http://intuiscript.com/). The authors are grateful to their industrial partners (Script&Go, Microsoft), educational experts, Brittany region and LOUSTIC laboratory for their collaboration.

ReferencesAlmaksour, A., & Anquetil, E. (2011). Improving premise structure in evolving takagi-sugeno neuro-fuzzy classifiers. Evolving Systems, 2, 25–33.Almaksour, A., & Anquetil, E. (2013). Ilclass: Error- driven antecedent learning for evolving takagi- sugeno classification systems. Applied Soft Computing, 19, 419–429.Accardo, A. P., Genna, M., & Borean, M. (2013). Development, maturation and learning influence on handwriting kinematics. Human movement science, 32, 136-146.Bouillon, M., & Anquetil, E. (2015). Handwriting

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analysis with online fuzzy models. In Conference of the International Graphonomics Society, 71- 74.Delaye, A., & Anquetil, E. (2013). Hbf49 feature set: A first unified baseline for online symbol recognition. Pattern Recognition, 46, 117-130.Dinehart, L. H. (2015). Handwriting in early childhood education: Current research and future implications. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 15, 97-118.Falk, Tam, Schellnus, & Chau. (2011). On the development of a computer-based handwriting assessment tool to objectively quantify handwriting proficiency in children. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 103, 102-111.Guinet & Kandel. S. (2010). Ductus: A software package for the study of handwriting production. Behavior Research Methods, 42, 326-332.Hu, Z-H., Xu, Y., Huang, L-S., & Leung, H. (2009) A Chinese handwriting education system with automatic error detection. Journal of Software, 4, 101-107.

Jolly C. & Gentaz. E. (2013). Analysis of cursive letters, syllables, and words handwriting in a french second-grade child with developmental coordination disorder and comparison with typically developing children. Frontiers in psychology, 4, 1-10,Kulesh, V., Schaffer, K., Sethi, I. & Schwartz, M. (2001). Handwriting quality evaluation. In International Conference on Advances in Pattern Recognition, 157-165.Li-Tsang, C. W. P., Wong, A. S. K., Leung, H. W. H., Cheng, J. S., Chiu, B. H. W., Linda, F. L., & Chung, R. C. K. (2013). Validation of the Chinese handwriting analysis system (chas) for primary school students in Hong Kong. Research in developmental disabilities, 34, 2872- 2883.Schickedanz, J. A. (1999). Much More than the ABCs: The Early Stages of Reading and Writing. ERIC.Tan, C. K. (2002). An algorithm for on-line strokes verification of Chinese characters using discrete features. In International Workshop on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition.

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ResearchDigest

ResearchDigest

Research DigestCompiled by Emma Sumner, with contributions

from Lynsey O’Rourke and Olivia Afonso

It is, once more, encouraging to see a high number of research papers related to handwriting published in 2015. Each year there seems to be new handwriting research, spanning a range of interesting topics. Here we present short summaries of ten studies published last year, with a further four papers listed at the end for those that may be interested. The selected topics consider handwriting interventions and the effect of handwriting on other aspects of development, such as language and wider written compositional skills. The second half of the reviews identify handwriting profiles in various developmental disorders (Developmental Coordination Disorder, Dyslexia, and Autism Spectrum Disorder).

Handwriting is a foundational skill from which written composition can develop. In particular, it is important for children to produce legible and fluent handwriting, but for young writers the development of these skills often need supporting through direct instruction. Intervention studies have been published but, in this comprehensive review of the literature, Santangelo and Graham successfully employ a meta-analysis approach to bring together the findings of a range of studies that have examined the effectiveness of different methods of teaching handwriting.

A literature review of studies focused on handwriting instruction between kindergarten and 12th grade (K-12; ages 5-18) was conducted. The purpose of the meta-analysis was to determine whether teaching handwriting enhances legibility and fluency (i.e., how quickly children write), and subsequently results in better writing performance. The authors also considered whether efforts to improve students’

motor skills enhance handwriting skills and, finally, they determined the effectiveness of specific methods used to teach handwriting. To be included in the analysis, published studies had to (1) involve participants in the specified age range (K-12), (2) contain an intervention and control group, (3) employ a true- or quasi-experiment to test the intervention, (4) measure legibility and/or fluency, (5) be written in English, and (6) contain relevant statistics to compute effect size results. Moreover, studies that were conducted within schools exclusively for students with disabilities were excluded. As is typical for a meta-analysis, effect sizes were calculated to demonstrate the size of the difference between two groups (i.e., intervention vs. control). The various computations for this are listed in the full paper. Of note, out of a possible 459 handwriting instruction studies, only 80 experiments met the inclusion criteria.

In the 80 studies, handwriting instruction ranged from relatively short and focused sessions (e.g., copying letters) to longer and more thorough programs (e.g., multi-component instruction across several months). The control condition was either no instruction at all, or instruction that was not directly related to handwriting (e.g., phonological awareness training). Following handwriting instruction, positive effects on improving legibility were found for 85% of the studies. Further, students who received 10 or more hours of instruction made greater gains in this respect. Positive gains were also found for fluency in 87% of the handwriting interventions. Here, older students appeared to make greater fluency improvements as a result of handwriting instruction, compared to younger children.

Only 7 out of the 80 studies considered whether handwriting instruction improved children’s written compositional skills (i.e., writing quality, length). Indeed, handwriting-instructed students

Santangelo, T., & Graham, S. (2015). A comprehensive meta-analysis of handwriting instruction. Educational Psychology Review, 1-41.

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made greater gains than peers who did not receive instruction in the quality of their writing and how much they wrote. Research often suggests that training handwriting to become automatic will free up working memory resources to devote to higher-order compositional aspects of writing (i.e., planning, reviewing the text), and the findings here provide some support for this.

The notion of teaching motor skills (i.e., manual dexterity development) as a way to improve handwriting was not found to be supported, demonstrating weak effects when compared to specific, targeted handwriting training. However, individualised handwriting instruction and teaching via technology has demonstrated significant improvements in legibility for both children with and without handwriting difficulties. In particular, using self-evaluation as part of handwriting instruction was beneficial for legibility, as well as copying individual letters from models and memory.

The overall findings from the meta-analysis strongly suggest that explicitly teaching handwriting not only improves students’ legibility and fluency, but also results in better quality writing. Additionally, the research evidence suggests that focused intervention is most beneficial, as opposed to general motor skill training. Future intervention studies would benefit from considering the wider impact of transcription skills (i.e., handwriting) on the writing process (composition) and writing development.

The aim of this study was to investigate how language, handwriting and fine-motor performance evolve in the first years of primary school, and the relationship between these skills. Using a longitudinal approach, Dutch children were assessed in Grades 1, 2 and 3 (UK equivalents, Year 2-4). Language skills were determined by reading and spelling performance on national, school-based tests. A learning output percentage was provided by the school, in which raw performance is considered relatively to the performance of the norm group (children of the same age). Handwriting was assessed by means of the Concise Assessment Scale for Children’s Handwriting (BHK), a standardised copying task which provides handwriting speed and legibility scores. Finally, to assess fine-motor ability, a loop-writing task was administered. In this task, children were asked to draw loops of different height (12, 9, 6 and 3 mm) at three different paces (by means of an acoustic signal of either 1, 2 or 3 Hz), to assess the effects of time constraints.

Results revealed that handwriting performance increased over the three years. Language abilities increasingly met the requirements of the grade, and errors and variability in the loop-writing task decreased. Between Grades 1 and 2, all language and motor scores improved, with measures of handwriting speed showing the largest increment. Between Grades 2 and 3, a large effect was found for handwriting speed, but no improvement was observed for the other variables. Significant positive correlations between reading and spelling scores were found for all grades. Reading, spelling ability, and variability in loop writing significantly correlated with handwriting speed only in Grade 1; meaning the better children were at reading, spelling and producing loops, the faster their handwriting speed. Only spelling ability was related to handwriting speed in Grade 2.

Bosga-Stork, I. M., Bosga, J., Ellis, J. L., & Meulenbroek, R. G. J. (2015). Developing interactions between language and motor skills in the first three years of formal handwriting education. British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science, 12, 1-13.

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However, no correlations between the language measures and handwriting speed measure were found by Grade 3 (UK, Year 4). Finally, slow hand-writers that were identified in Grade 1 remained slow in Grades 2 and 3; yet, although these slow writers demonstrate lower reading and spelling performance in Grades 1 and 2, they were able to reach a similar level in the language measures to faster writers by Grade 3.

The results demonstrate that handwriting speed consistently progresses during the first three years of primary school in the Netherlands, but language learning and fine-motor ability (e.g., loop writing) show a less consistent pattern. The fact that handwriting speed is correlated with reading and spelling in Grades 1 and 2 but not in Grade 3 indicates that handwriting becomes an autonomous skill as children mature. Furthermore, the findings reveal that slow writers in Grade 1 remain slow in Grades 2 and 3, even though they are eventually able to catch up in language skill. The authors stress the need for teachers and therapists to monitor handwriting speed alongside literacy abilities and broader motor skill, as well as recognising that timings of assessment may influence the outcomes to some degree.

Gaze behaviour during the handwriting process is rarely considered. In this study, the eye movements of 13 adults (aged 18-40) were monitored and compared during writing and reading tasks. Participants faced three conditions: they wrote a word in isolation, wrote the word in a sentence, and read a sentence aloud with the word in it. The stimuli comprised 6 words, which were used in each condition and were presented in a randomised order. For

the writing tasks, each word or sentence, was presented aurally; whereas, for the reading task, the sentence was presented on a piece of paper. It was expected that eye movement patterns would differ between tasks; however, no specific differences were hypothesised.

Measures taken included: number of fixations (the number of times a participant fixed their gaze during a task), duration of fixations, mean fixations over time (fixations per second), and total dwell time (sum of fixations). In addition, handwriting movements were recorded and analysed for: the number of strokes, the horizontal space that a word occupied, total distance travelled by the pen, and average absolute velocity (the average speed at which each stroke is produced).

Different gaze patterns were found depending on whether the participant wrote or read the presented words. Participants made more fixations when writing a word (mean = 8.55) than when reading a word (mean = 2.30). Furthermore, participants made longer fixations when writing a word and subsequently showed a longer dwell time for writing (3.38 seconds) than reading (0.52 seconds) the target words. Participants also made more fixations per second when writing (2.57) than when reading (1.62), suggesting the additional time spent fixating when writing as opposed to reading was not only due to more time spent on task. The authors interpret these extra fixations as related to the production needs of writing and, therefore, not indicative of the participant only reading what has been written.

Further, participants made more fixations and had a longer overall dwell time when writing words alone than when writing the word within a sentence. However, there was no difference in durations of fixations. Distance travelled by

Sita, J. C., & Taylor, K. A. (2015). Eye movements during the handwriting of words: individually and within sentences. Human Movement Science, 43, 229-238.

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the pen positively correlated with the number of fixations. Similarly, the more horizontal space a word occupied, the more fixations occurred during the writing of that word. These correlations were stronger when words were written as part of a sentence than when written alone. Authors consider that this may be because writing a sentence is a more natural writing task and causes the relationship between fixations and handwriting to be stronger. Finally, a larger font and faster production times were noted for individual words than for words in a sentence. Authors suggest that the size of handwriting influences the rate at which fixations occur and that fixations relate to spatial factors of handwriting. Overall, this study supports the notion that eye movements during writing are related to the act of text production, and not only to reading the text produced.

The Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI) is an assessment tool often used in occupational therapy services to examine an individual’s ability to integrate both visual and motor skills. Some also use the VMI as an outcome measure after handwriting interventions. However, the authors of this paper question whether there is enough solid evidence to warrant using the VMI in the latter context. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the VMI as an outcome measure.

A sample of 207 children, aged 5-8 years, took

part in this study. Children were randomly split into two groups (intervention vs. control) and underwent pre- and post-test assessments (e.g., VMI and the Test of Handwriting Skills-Revised [THS-R]). The intervention group was administered the Size Matters Handwriting Program (SMHP) which consisted of forty 20-minute sessions over an 8-week period. The control group participated in their usual handwriting instruction in the classroom. For the VMI, children had to copy geometric forms; and for the THS-R, children completed the manuscript writing booklet, which required writing lower and uppercase letters. To assess handwriting the Minnesota Handwriting Assessment (MHA) was used, which considers rate, legibility, form, alignment, size, and spacing.

Results revealed no changes in the VMI scores between pre- and post- test. This means that despite those children receiving specific handwriting (and thus motor) intervention their visual-motor integration scores as measured by the VMI did not appear to improve. In contrast, over-time improvements were seen on the THS-R and MHA for both groups, and more so in the intervention group. Finally, the correlation between VMI and handwriting measures while significant, were small to moderate.

The reported findings do not support the use of the VMI as an outcome measure for assessing change in handwriting following intervention. The VMI was not considered to be sensitive enough to measure change. The findings highlight that although both the VMI and a handwriting task require integration of motor and visual skills, the VMI must be a different construct from handwriting or, like the other handwriting measures in the study, changes should have been observed. Notably, if only the VMI had been used, then the conclusion would

Pfeiffer, B., Moskowitz, B., Paoletti, A., Brusilovskiy, E., Zylstra, S. E., & Murray, T. (2015). Developmental test of visual-motor integration (VMI): An effective outcome measure for handwriting interventions for kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade students? The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 69, 1-7.

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have wrongfully been that the handwriting program was not beneficial. Care should be taken if using the VMI to inform decisions about students’ performance and access to services, and measuring change/improvement. Pfeiffer and colleagues reinforce that the VMI was never intended to assess handwriting ability, nor screen for handwriting difficulties, and argue for the need to incorporate additional handwriting measures when monitoring the effectiveness of interventions.

This study investigated two writing interventions and their effect on handwriting in Israeli kindergarten children (mean age, 5 years). The authors compared the 'traffic light' writing program and the 'word and sound' program. Children were assigned to one of the intervention programmes, both of which took part across twelve (weekly), 20-minute sessions in groups of five.

Fifty-five children took part in the traffic light intervention. In this intervention, three coloured dots are used to guide letter formation: a green dot at the start point of a letter, a yellow dot for the middle and a red dot at the end. Each lesson focused on groups of letters with similar structures; for example, letters with straight lines were grouped together. Given the nature of this intervention, it was anticipated to relate to gains in handwriting performance. As a control condition, the word and sound program was administered to 46 children. This is a method of teaching phonological awareness. Children learnt to identify beginning and end sounds of words and to segment words phonetically.

Prior to and following the intervention, children were asked to: (1) write their own name, (2) copy the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and (3) copy one three-word sentence. From these handwriting samples, handwriting readiness was assessed using the Hebrew Handwriting Readiness Assessment (HHRA). The measures of the HHRA were grouped into: quality of letters (quality of lines used to form the letter, line intensity, directionality of letter formation and the quality of the finished letter), orientation in space (spatial orientation of letter parts within letters, letter placement on the lines, spacing between letters, and spacing between words), and quality of writing of one's own name (using the features mentioned previously). Additional measures included handwriting speed (measured in seconds), whether a child started writing immediately or after a delay, whether they appeared relaxed during the task, and whether they expressed self-confidence or not.

After 12 weeks, children's name-writing improved for both groups: this improvement did not differ between groups. On most measures of handwriting readiness, the children in the traffic light intervention group improved more than those in the control group. Letter and word spacing, however, was improved equally across both groups. Although behavioural measures suggest that both groups enjoyed writing more after the interventions than before, the handwriting readiness group showed a significantly larger increase in positive reactions than the control group. There was no difference in handwriting speed between groups. In sum, it was found that 12 weekly session of the traffic light handwriting intervention program increased handwriting readiness, as determined by several of the measures from the HHRA, significantly more so than a phonological awareness program. The results suggest that

Lifshitz, N., & Har-Zvi, S. (2015). A comparison between students who receive and who do not receive a writing readiness interventions on handwriting quality, speed and positive reactions. Early Childhood Education, 43, 47-55.

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and were practised together with the previously taught letters. The practice began with non-words and moved on to copying words. The units were taught in 14 sessions of 45 minutes by college teachers or senior occupational therapy students, and the researchers checked the fidelity of the instruction.

Results revealed that the group with LD had a slower keyboarding speed than their peers without LD in the pre-test. Moreover, keyboarding speed decreased in the post-test in the non-LD group and increased in the LD group, but this effect did not reach statistical significance. The authors postulated that this may be due to the fact that participants were forced to change their habitual patterns of keyboarding at this stage, slowing-down their production. However, in the long-term assessment, keyboarding speed increased for both groups. Interestingly, the LD group showed a similar performance in the long-term measurement as the non-LD group in the pre-test. It seems that all participants benefited from the instructional programme. These findings support the effectiveness of this instructional programme, particularly for individuals with LD.

Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) frequently present with handwriting difficulties, often reflected by poor legibility, greater dysfluency and more pausing time. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain these difficulties, including the existence of a problem with muscle stiffness, difficulties in organising the motor output, or

specific letter formation practice leads to better overall performance in handwriting readiness.

Although students with reading and/or writing difficulties often use the computer to circumvent their difficulties, the fact that many of them are not skilled typewriters may hinder their academic achievement. This study tested the effect of a touch-typing instructional programme on keyboarding skills in higher education students with and without learning disabilities (LD). The aims of the study were to determine whether the program would increase keyboarding speed, maintaining similar levels of accuracy, and to assess the long-term effect of the program on the keyboarding skills.

Forty-four Hebrew-speaking students (24 with LD and 20 without LD) participated in all phases of the study, which included an assessment of reading and writing abilities to determine group membership (with or without disabilities) and an evaluation of keyboarding skills before the training (pre-test), immediately after the end of the training (post-test) and 3 months after the termination of the instruction (long-term test). Keyboarding skill was evaluated by recording keyboarding speed and accuracy in a copying task. The level of keyboarding ability was recorded using a 5-point scale, ranging from typing with one hand and using frequent visual feedback (1) to using both hands while relying on kinaesthetic feedback (5). The instructional software, called “Easy Fingers”, consisted of 18 training units in which two letters were introduced in each unit

Weigelt Marom, H., and Weintraub, N. (2015). The effect of touch-typing program on keyboarding skills of higher education students with and without learning disabilities. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 47, 208-217.

Huau, A., Velay, J.-L., and Jover, M. (2015). Graphomotor skills in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD): Handwriting and learning a new letter. Human Movement Science, 42, 318-332.

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the fast condition. Significant differences were observed on the BHK test, with lower quality scores recorded for children with DCD.

In sum, children with and without DCD differed in their grapho-motor execution when constraints were added to the task. Children with DCD were more affected by speed and length constraints, and also showed more variability in their handwriting performance. Increased variability is often associated to poorly automatised movement. Thus, the authors claim that this evidence could support the existence of a deficit in motor learning in children with DCD. However, they do acknowledge the possibility that this pattern may be a consequence of neuro-motor noise, which would disturb handwriting execution. More research is necessary in this area, in the hope of being able to provide suggestions to move forward handwriting interventions for this population.

Handwriting difficulties have previously been reported in children with an autism spectrum disorder. However, little is known about the handwriting profile of children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD; i.e., those with high IQ). This study aimed to characterise handwriting performance of children with HFASD by considering both product (e.g., legibility) and process (e.g., kinematic) measures.

Thirty children with HFASD were compared to 30 typically-developing (TD) children: both groups aged 9-12 years. All children

less effective motor learning ability. This last hypothesis is assessed in the present study.

Children aged 8-11 years with and without DCD performed several handwriting tasks varying in length (letters, words, and sentences) and speed (normal, fast). They also performed a new letter (a meaningless symbol) learning task on a digitising tablet. The Concise Assessment Scale for Children’s Handwriting (abbreviated to BHK), a standardised test in which children are asked to copy a text, was administrated to evaluate the quality of the handwritten product. As children wrote on the surface of a digital tablet that recorded the xy coordinates of the pen, additional measures of trajectory length, mean trajectory velocity, number of stops and pen pressure were also taken. A coefficient of variation (CV) was calculated as a measure of intra-individual variability (i.e., within-person performance) across trials. The quality of the new letter was evaluated by means of visual inspection.

Results showed that children with DCD produced poorer quality new letters than children without DCD and that the intra-individual variability for quality and velocity was higher in the DCD group. This means that children with DCD were less consistent with regards to velocity profiles and quality of the output. The difference between groups was larger when the model of the new letter was not present. In the handwriting tasks, the two groups differed in trajectory length, with longer trajectories in the DCD group. They also exhibited greater variability for trajectory than the control group. The difference between groups in trajectory length and pen pressure increased with the length of the handwriting task. Children with DCD were slower than children without DCD in the normal condition, but faster in the fast condition. Larger group differences were observed for pen pressure in

Rosenblum, S., Simhon, H. A. B., & Gal, E. (2015). Unique handwriting performance characteristics of children with high functioning autism spectrum disorder. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 23, 235-244.

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were recruited in Israel and thus wrote using a Hebrew script. A digital writing tablet was used to record and analyse handwriting. Children wrote with an ink pen on to a piece of paper over the surface of the tablet. They were instructed to write their name, to copy a paragraph, and to write a story based on a picture that was shown in front of them. Handwriting was analysed based on: pen tilt (the angle between the pen and surface), on-paper stroke duration, in-air stroke duration (when the pen is raised above the paper), stroke width, stroke height, and pen pressure. As well as these process measures, the Hebrew Handwriting Evaluation (HHE) was used to rate global legibility, the number of letters erased and/or overwritten, unrecognisable letters, and spatial arrangement. The HHE was only implemented to evaluate the paragraph copying task. Number of letters and words written in the set time were also recorded.

Significant differences were found between the two groups (HFASD vs TD) on all process measures. Across all three writing tasks (name writing, copying, story writing), children with HFASD were found to spend more time on-paper, had significantly higher and wider letter strokes and their pen tilt range was significantly lower.

Assessment of legibility also revealed significant group differences. The written text of children with HFASD was deemed less legible and had poorer spatial arrangement than their peers, although the two groups produced an equivalent number of unrecognizable letters and corrections. Children with HFASD also wrote significantly fewer letters in the first minute of the copying task but, interestingly, there were no differences in the number of words written in the free-style writing task. Further statistical analyses were conducted to determine which

measures best predicted group membership. This revealed that handwriting speed, mean pen stroke height, and spatial arrangement were the best measures to differentiate between the two groups, with poorer performance evident in the children with HFASD.

Together these findings highlight that children with HFASD write with a smaller range of pen motions, but produce bigger letters that require more time to produce them. Larger letters indicate a less mature ability and the finding of longer stroke durations and more time on-paper suggests that children with HFASD invest a large amount of energy into the mechanical aspect of writing production. Rosenblum and colleagues suggest that the difficulties experienced by the HFASD group may be due to impaired fine motor abilities. Future research is required to understand whether the pen tilt reflect fine motor deficits. It is, however, important to note that the HFASD group presented with high variability on the handwriting measures, which means heterogeneous performance and that consideration of individual children may be a better way to profile handwriting difficulties.

The study addressed whether deficits in motor ability, such as handwriting, are present in developmental dyslexia, and whether these deficits may be due to a problem in the temporal binding of events. To this end, the authors tested two principles of rhythmic organisation: isochrony and homothety. Isochrony refers to the proportional relationship between the speed of a movement and the length of its trajectory in order to keep the duration of the movement

Pagliarini, E., Guasti, M. T., Toneatto, C., Granocchio, E., Riva, F., Sarti, D., Molteni, B., and Stucchi, N. (2015). Dyslexic children fail to comply with the rhythmic constraints of handwriting. Human Movement Science, 42, 161-182.

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constant. In handwriting this means, for example, that if we have to write bigger than usual we will increase our writing speed so the approximate letter duration remains similar to the duration in the usual size. Homothety refers to the invariance in the relative duration of the components of a movement. This means that if the same word is written at different speed rates, the relative duration of each letter will be kept roughly the same.

Children with developmental dyslexia (DD) without any signs of dysgraphia, were compared to children with developmental dyslexia and dysgraphia (DD_DY) and also typically developing children (TD). All children were between 8-11 years old and their first language was Italian. They performed a task of reading words and non-words, a non-words repetition task, a receptive vocabulary test and a writing task. In the writing task, participants were required to write on a digitizing tablet the Italian word burle (‘jokes’) in different scripts (cursive and block script in capitals), and in five different conditions: Spontaneous, Big, Small, Fast and Slow. A scribbling task was also administrated to test motor abilities without a linguistic component.

To be expected, TD children read faster and more accurately than children with DD and DD_DY, and obtained higher scores in the non-word repetition and receptive vocabulary tests. The writing task results revealed that all three groups exhibited a similar average speed when writing spontaneously, but that both groups with DD wrote more slowly and more dysfluently than the TD group in the Big and Fast conditions. In the analysis of the duration of individual letters, significant differences were observed between TD children and both groups of DD children only in the Big condition. However, no difference was observed in this variable between the DD

and DD_DY groups. Interestingly, although the duration of individual letters was similar for TD children in the three conditions, DD and DD_DY children produced longer durations in the Big than in the Spontaneous condition. Writing speed was found to be related to reading speed and receptive vocabulary, reflecting that faster writer were those children with better reading and vocabulary skills.

The results confirm the presence of difficulties in handwriting in developmental dyslexia, even in the absence of dysgraphia. Namely, it seems that children with developmental dyslexia may have problems to comply with the rhythmic principles of isochrony and homothety, demonstrated by slow speed when the task demands are manipulated. Correlation analyses suggest that these problems with rhythmic timing may underlie both reading and handwriting difficulties in developmental dyslexia.

Spelling difficulties are a frequent complaint among adult writers with dyslexia. However, there is little research into the nature of the spelling deficits seen in this population. Some authors attribute spelling difficulties in adults with dyslexia to poor phonological awareness. Others have suggested that errors are due to poor orthographic-lexical representations. If spelling difficulties are due to poor phonological awareness, then the spelling of non-words (novel words with consistent phonological-orthographical mapping) would be impaired. If the orthographical representations are impaired, then errors would appear in non-predictable spellings (words with inconsistent phonological-orthographical mappings).

Afonso, O., Suárez-Coalla, P., & Cuetos, F. (2015). Spelling impairments in Spanish dyslexic adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0046

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Further, analysis of spelling production while handwriting can reveal insights into how individuals process words and the relationship between transcription skills (i.e., handwriting and spelling).

Participants in this study were native Spanish speakers. Twenty adults with dyslexia were matched by age and gender to 20 adults without dyslexia (8 males; 12 females). Participants took part in two tasks: a spelling to dictation task and a direct copy transcoding task. In the spelling to dictation task, participants were presented auditory stimuli and were asked to write down the word that was presented. In the direct copy task, participants were presented with visual stimuli (words in lower case) and were asked to copy the word. For both tasks, participants were instructed to write in uppercase script (i.e., capital letters) as fast and accurately as possible. They wrote on paper which was placed on top of a digitizing tablet that recorded their writing. The stimuli for both tasks consisted of 32 Spanish common nouns, which varied in phonological-orthographical consistency (consistent vs. inconsistent), word frequency (high vs. low) and word length (short vs. long). Accuracy, latency (the time between the presentation of the stimulus and the occurrence of the first contact of the pen with the digitizer), inter-letter intervals (the time between the last pen lift in production of a letter and the first pen down in production of the next letter), and duration (the time from the first pen down and the last pen lift per word) of each response was measured.

Generally, accuracy was poorer for participants with dyslexia than the control group. Participants with dyslexia showed difficulty producing words whether stimuli were presented visually or aurally. They showed longer latencies and inter-letter intervals than

participants without dyslexia, supporting claims that spelling difficulties persist into adulthood for writers with dyslexia. Consistency affected both groups equally. Accuracy was poorer, and latencies and inter-letter-intervals were longer, for inconsistent words than consistent words. The authors felt that these results do not support differences in phonological-orthographical mapping between groups. Interestingly, the group with dyslexia showed longer latencies for the copy task than the spelling to dictation task, while the control group showed the opposite pattern. Therefore, the authors suggest that, for participants with dyslexia, it is the access to the orthographic representation that is impaired. In support of this, the dyslexic group showed larger latency effects of word frequency and word length than the control group, suggesting deficits in the orthographic lexicon and the graphemic buffer in dyslexia.

These findings suggest that writers with dyslexia struggle to store or recall spellings when handwriting. Difficulties with spelling appeared to influence the production of handwriting, evidenced by adults with dyslexia pausing for longer before starting to write a difficult word.

Further readingsAlstad, Z., Sanders, E., Abbott, R. D., Barnett, A. L., Henderson, S. E., Connelly, V., & Berninger, V. W. (2015). Modes of alphabet letter production during middle childhood and adolescence: interrelationships with each other and other writing skills. Journal of Writing Research, 6, 199-231.Brossard-Racine, M., Shevell, M., Snider, L., Belanger, S. A., Julien, M., & Majnemer, A. (2015). Persistent handwriting difficulties in children with ADHD after treatment with stimulant medication. Journal of Attention Disorders, 19, 620-629.

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Jongbloed-Pereboom, M., Peeters, A., Overvelde, A., Nijhuis-van der Sanden, M. W. G., & Steenbergen, B. (2015). Learning of writing letter-like sequences in children with physical and multiple disabilities. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 36, 150-161.

Scordella, A., Di Sano, S., Aurelli, T., Cerratti, P., Veratti, V., Fano-Illic, G., & Pietrangelo, T. (2015). The role of general dynamic coordination in the handwriting skills of children. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 580, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00580

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CurrentIssues

Current IssuesCompiled by Angela Webb

We need to talk about ‘dysgraphia’The NHA is often asked about the use of the term ‘dysgraphia’ as a diagnosis for children with poor handwriting and this is now becoming quite a contentious issue. The term appears with increasing frequency in the media, in journal articles and in reports from educational and clinical psychologists who use it to describe the individual strengths and weaknesses in children’s handwriting, but many people, professionals and parents alike, question what exactly it means.

Two particular problems have been brought to our attention. In some instances parents find the term appears in a report on their child but guidance is not given as to the nature, extent or severity of the difficulty. In others, we hear of those who, aware of their child’s difficulty with handwriting, seek a diagnosis to trigger the necessary support or concessions but then express surprise when this is not forthcoming. Additionally, from a teaching perspective, those who work with children with handwriting difficulties often ask if and how they should be using the term. And in the field of research, studies into handwriting performance increasingly differentiate their trial groups according to whether or not the children are ‘dysgraphic’ but not always is the way in which these children are grouped transparent. In all these cases, a clear definition would be helpful.

In the current climate of recognized ‘dys’-orders, such as dyslexia, dyspraxia (Developmental Coordination Disorder), dyscalculia, etc., a similar term relating to handwriting, i.e. ‘dysgraphia’, would not seem out of place. It would be particularly helpful for describing children who struggle to handwrite but who do not meet the criteria for any other developmental disorder. In other words, the difficulty they experience with handwriting is an isolated problem. However, although handwriting

difficulties are widely acknowledged, there is a reluctance to use the term ‘dysgraphia’ in the UK as we do not have a consensus on what it actually means and not all those who use the term share a common understanding.

Let’s unpick this issue and examine what we currently know. First, as suggested above, it would seem logical to equate ‘dysgraphia’ with other similar disorders, interpreting it as ‘a disability of handwriting’ (dys = disturbance of + graphia = graphic skill). But when we look more closely, what does a ‘disturbance of graphic skill’ mean in terms what a child can and cannot do? Handwriting is very complex, requiring a coordinated blend of motor, perceptual, linguistic and orthographic skills of the highest order. Handwriting performance can be disturbed by weakness in any one or in all of these areas and no child will present exactly the same package of impairment as another. Also, graphic skill is just one component of the wider skill of writing, the essence of which is the generating and developing of ideas which are translated into linguistic units and then organized and crafted to create a piece of text. In some domains, ‘dysgraphia’ is used to describe all of these processes.

A further confusing factor we need to be aware of is that the term 'dysgraphia' is used differently in different countries. In the Netherlands, for example, it is used to describe those who struggle with the mechanics of handwriting as measured on a particular standardized test (the BHK1). In contrast, in the USA the term is either used synonymously with a 'handwriting difficulty' with three subgroups of dysgraphia highlighted ('dyslexic', 'motor' and 'visuo-spatial') depending on the main features displayed, or confusingly, it is used to describe a “learning disability of written expression” which is an umbrella term describing the whole writing process which may include poor organization or planning of ideas.

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Even within these two countries, usage is not consistent.

The position here in the UK is that we have no set established guidance, or a diagnostic term from a reliable authority on defining a handwriting disability specifically. For the diagnosis of most known developmental disorders of childhood, such as Attention Deficit Disorder (AD/HD), Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) and disorders on the autistic spectrum (ASD) UK psychologists are guided by the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) while those in Europe favour the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Despite the increasing general use of ‘dysgraphia’, the term does not appear in its own right in either of the major international classification systems (DSM-52 or ICD-103) to describe specifically a handwriting difficulty. In the 2013 revision of DSM-5, ‘dysgraphia’ is entered under ‘specific learning disabilities’ and states: “…dysgraphia is the term associated with specific learning disabilities in writing. It is used to capture both the physical act of writing and the quality of written expression”.

The above description of dysgraphia relates to both the mechanics of handwriting and, more generally, to the ability to express oneself in writing, with all that that entails in terms of language ability and the organization and planning of text. This general interpretation does not attempt to identify the handwriting-only aspect of the difficulty and is unsatisfactory on two counts: First, there needs to be some way of identifying and evaluating the core mechanical process of producing handwritten text (which may in turn affect the quality of the content), and second, it should be recognized that poor written expression may result from reasons which are not linked to the physical production of text, such

as linguistic deficits or problems with executive function.

This leaves us without a universal diagnostic term to flag up the presence and severity of a handwriting difficulty, which is one reason why the discussion about ‘dysgraphia’ has come to the fore. We have to ask why is there nothing out there for this specific identification and how we should proceed towards establishing something?

One answer comes from the fact that in order for there to be a universal and consistent definition of any difficulty it is important to understand the process by which developmental disorders come to be recognized (and thus included in the diagnostic and statistical manuals). In order for a diagnosis to be given, there have to be both standardised ways of measuring the child’s performance in the specified area and also set and agreed cut-off points to distinguish those who meet the criteria for the disorder and those who do not. At present, there is no consensus here with regard to handwriting and its measurement tools, let alone the wider quality of written expression. To take the physical act of handwriting first, difficulties may occur in any of several different aspects (e.g. speed, legibility, fluency, automaticity, sustainability). We now have a standardized assessment test for measuring handwriting speed in the UK (the DASH4) and are soon to be able to use the newly developed Handwriting Legibility Scale5. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

1 Hamstra-Bletz, De Bie and Brinker (1993). The Concise Evaluation Scale for Children’s Handwriting (BHK). 2 American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5. American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.3 World Health Organisation. (1992). International Classification of Diseases and Disorders (10th ed.). Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organisation.4 Barnett, A., Henderson, S. E, Scheib, B., & Schulz, C. (2007). Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting. UK: Pearson Education. 5 Barnett, A., et al, (2015). The Handwriting Legibility Scale (in press).

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CurrentIssues

However, can we standardize the assessment of fluency, automaticity or sustainability? To our knowledge, no test has been developed to measure these factors, yet they may be just as significant in interfering with the smooth production of handwritten text as the other measures.

One possible response to this question might be to adopt the basic diagnostic criteria to be met, such as those of the DSM-5 entry on DCD. If we substitute the term ‘handwriting’ for ‘motor coordination’ in the list below we could make a start. The following are the criteria to be met for a diagnosis of DCD to which I refer:

Criterion A: “performance in daily activities that require motor coordination is substantially below that expected, given the person’s chronological age and measured intelligence”.

Criterion B: “significantly interferes with academic achievement or activities of daily living”.

Criterion C: “the poor motor coordination observed cannot be accounted for by any medical or neurological condition”.

Criterion D: “the difficulty cannot be explained by global delay”.

At least within this framework, the functional impairments of poor handwriting would be recognized.

Looking next to the quality of written expression, this also needs to be standardized if the criteria of the DSM-5 are to be met. Currently, this aspect of writing is often measured for research purposes using the Wechsler Objective Language Dimensions (WOLD - Written Expression component)6 where writing can be rated holistically or in more depth

using seven different writing criteria (generation and development of ideas, organisation, cohesion and unity, sentence structure, grammar, vocabulary, capitalization and punctuation). The test carries the assumption that weakness in any or all of these areas can impact negatively on the quality of written expression and as well as producing an overall grade on the scale, the specific locus or loci of impairment can be identified using these categories. Whilst this test has proved useful for research, there has been no guidance on what level of performance would be consistent with a ‘dysgraphia’ diagnosis and it is currently left with the individual psychologists to use their professional judgment as to whether the levels of impairment are sufficient to warrant a ‘dysgraphia’ label.

There is one additional issue I would like to discuss at this point, arising from a recognition that handwriting is, to a great extent, a motor skill. It is often believed that all poorly coordinated children, such as those with DCD (dyspraxia), have ‘dysgraphic’ or handwriting problems. Again, this can be misleading. Despite ‘a difficulty with handwriting’ being a listed feature of DCD, some children with that diagnosis are able to write well enough in certain ways or in certain contexts. For example, some can produce tidy and legible handwriting but at the expense of quantity. Others may be able to handwrite fast and produce a lot of text, though with poor control, affecting legibility. Some can write competently for short periods of time but are vulnerable to fatigue. There is no ‘typical’ handwriting profile associated with DCD. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that poor handwriting results not only from DCD. This is particularly true if the difficulties are not motoric in origin or if poor control is based on a different problem, such as impulsivity. Difficulties are frequently reported in children ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

6 Rust, J. (1996). The Manual of the Wechsler Objective Language Dimensions (WOLD): UK edition. London: The Psychological Corporation.

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who meet the criteria for other developmental disorders, such as ADHD, dyslexia, Speech and Language Impairment (SLI) and among those on the autistic spectrum (ASD), not to mention those with more significant learning difficulties, such as Cerebral Palsy or Down’s Syndrome. It is not solely a DCD characteristic. Lastly, we also need to recognize that there are a significant number of children whose handwriting difficulty occurs as an isolated problem and cannot be linked with any other known impairment, as mentioned above.

To summarise the current position, we at the NHA would advocate caution over using the term ‘dysgraphia’. It would seem clear from the examples described above that it at present causes confusion over meaning. It has different interpretations in different settings and whether it is used for research or in a clinical context where professional judgment plays a part. However, this is certainly not to avoid identifying handwriting difficulties or to under-estimate the level of distress and frustration which problems with handwriting can cause. At the NHA we recommend that handwriting difficulties should continue to be recognized through targeted assessment to focus on the type and severity of the problem. This way the impact on the child can be evaluated and appropriate intervention can be delivered. Where the difficulty is severe enough to significantly impede the child’s ability to access the curriculum, alternative or additional means of transcription should be made available. We also recommend that the specific aspect of handwriting which is problematic should be noted, be it accuracy, legibility, speed, automaticity and/or sustainability, using the increasing number of good assessment tools available to us (such as the DASH, Movement ABC-27 and HLS). Additionally, highlighting the locus of the difficulty – be it with motor skill, with visual perception, with linguistic fluency, with orthographic competence or with the organizational aspects of writing – will also lead to planning the most effective intervention or accommodation.

Assessment can also be made about the possible need for alternative or additional writing modes or the use of extra time for exams.

Angela Webb. Psychologist.

Updates on the Joining DebateIn last year’s NHA journal we launched a debate on the teaching of Continuous Cursive handwriting. Articles from three specialists in the teaching of handwriting offered evidence which challenged current practice. The questions raised were threefold:1. Is it essential to teach children to write in a continuous cursive style, such as the D’Nealian used in the USA?2. If so, should this style be taught from the outset when children are first introduced to letterforms – i.e. in Reception (5 years of age) in the UK?3. What would happen if children used a part- or un-joined style instead?Below are responses from two of those authors bringing us up to date with developments since those articles were published.

The Hybrid Writer A recent article published online by the New York Times (20 June 2016) entitled ‘Why Handwriting Is Still Essential in the Keyboard Age’ by Perri Klass summarizes the above debate above very succinctly1. In it she referred to current research evidence by American researcher Prof. Virginia Berninger and her colleagues advocating that we should be teaching children to become “Hybrid Writers”2. By this she meant that we should not be asking which mode of transcription children should be taught but that we should embrace the notion that all modes are important, but at different ages. In summary, Dr. Berninger quoted

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7 Henderson, S. E, Sugden, D. A., & Barnett, A. L. (2007). Movement Assessment Battery for Children (2nd ed.). London, UK: The Psychological Corporation

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CurrentIssues

research suggesting that children need introductory training in printing, then two years of learning and practising cursive, starting in grade three (our Year 4), and then some systematic attention to touch-typing. She based her statement on evidence that learning individual letterforms for printing supports reading development3, but that cursive handwriting is beneficial to both spelling retention and to compositional aspects of writing4. The final stage is to teach keyboarding skills with the suggestion that learning to touch-type, with the advantages to composing of becoming fast and automatic typers. Becoming proficient in all three modes of writing enables the young adult to use whichever mode best serves the purpose of the task.

Angela Webb

Teaching fully cursive writing in Reception: a year later A year later and the teaching of continuous cursive handwriting to very young children remains popular. One reason for this is the changes to assessment of writing in the KS1 and KS2 SATs

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2017-interim-frameworks-for-teacher-assessment-at-the-end-of-key-stage-1https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2017-interim-frameworks-for-teacher-assessment-at-the-end-of-key-stage-2

For the first time, the assessment of Writing at the end of KS1 and KS2 includes specific essential handwriting requirements. These were modified after protests during trialling in 2016, but will be implemented fully

in 2017. In a nutshell, Y2 pupils cannot achieve the ‘working at greater depth’ level unless they are ‘using the diagonal and horizontal strokes needed to join letters in most of their writing’.

This is interpreted by some to mean a fully cursive script, despite the National Curriculum for English requirement for Y2• start using some of the diagonal and horizontal strokes needed to join letters and understand which letters, when adjacent to one another, are best left unjoined

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335186/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_-_English_220714.pdf

In many schools, ‘getting children to join early’ is seen as a sensible solution to these demands. There does not appear to be any questioning of whether this is developmentally appropriate, just a optimism that it is the best way forward. Parents are being involved in the teaching with programmes such as Letter Join.http://www.letterjoin.co.uk

As a handwriting tutor, I am seeing young children who are struggling with the added complexity of ‘lead in strokes’. Parents are quite often confused too and unable to help. For very young children moving schools, the variety of letter forms can prove daunting.

In the schools I have visited this year as an INSET provider, there is anxiety about handwriting provision. Myths and misunderstandings abound. There is an urgent need for informed discussion and practice which reflects developmental needs rather than pedagogical fashion.

Pam Hulme

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1 http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/why-handwriting-is-still-essential-in-the-keyboard-age/?contentCollection=smarter-living&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news2 Berninger V, Abbott R, Cook CR, Nagy W (2016). Relationships of Attention and Executive Functions to Oral Language, Reading, and Writing Skills and Systems in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence. J Learn Disabil. 2016 Jan 8. pii: 0022219415617167.3 James, KH, Engelhardt L (2012). The effects of handwriting experience on functional brain development in pre-literate children. Trends Neuroscience Education. 1(1): 32–42.4 Alstad Z, Sanders E, Abbott RD, Barnett AL, Henderson SE, Connelly V, Berninger VW (2015).Modes of Alphabet Letter Production during Middle Childhood and Adolescence: Interrelationships with Each Other and Other Writing Skills. J Writ Res. 6(3) 199-231.

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different versions for left and right-handers their tri grip zones encourages the recommended dynamic tripod grip to improve

childrens handwriting and hand posture.

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Supported by the

Handwriting Today 41

Tips for

Teaching

Tips for TeachingCompiled by Catherine Elsey, Jo Moore, Michelle Van Rooyen

‘P Checks’ explainedHandwriting is a highly intricate skill and unlike an innate skill such as walking, it needs to be taught. This relies upon sound teaching principles, an opportunity to practice, a supportive environment and access to efficient tools.

The ability to write efficiently and legibly is required to meet the demands of the National Curriculum. Once learned, the mechanics of writing should be executed automatically. Handwriting requires more than just fine motor control as it involves many senses including vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile, plus praxis, cognition and language skills. Because of this complexity, even small difficulties can impact children’s ability to reach and maintain their potential at school often leading to a loss of self-confidence.

All children should have the necessary set of basic skills and controls in place before they should be

expected to master handwriting. They should be able to control and regulate the action of their large muscles and thereby their joints (shoulder and hip girdle, trunk, neck, elbow, wrist, knees and feet) using gross motor control. Gross motor control and postural regulation and stability facilitates the precise movement of the small muscles (fingers, eyes) required for handwriting to become easier.

To help facilitate comfortable, fluent, legible handwriting, the National Handwriting Association has produced a poster entitled ‘Good Practice for Handwriting’, which is divided into two key components: ‘Prepare for P checks’ and ‘S Factors for success’. The focus of this article is the first of these, ‘Prepare for P checks’.

The ‘P checks’ are used to support the process of handwriting and are used to support the process of handwriting and cover Posture, Pencil grasp, Paper position and Pressure and fluency.

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Tips forTeaching

1. Posture Assuming and maintaining correct posture when writing is a key component of gaining a stable position for writing. Without a stable position it is much more difficult to comfortably hold a pencil and direct it efficiently for handwriting.

Poor posture can be a root cause of common handwriting difficulties such as experiencing

pain or suffering fatigue and will present as a reluctance to write, poor presentation or legibility, slow writing speed and reduced output.

Optimising chair and table heights helps to encourage a stable sitting posture for writing. Adaptive equipment is available for those that struggle with the underlying stability, gross and fine motor skills required.

POSTURE GUIDELINE:

Feet flat on the floor or on a wide based raised surface Knees at a right angle with 2-fingers space behind the knee to avoid compression Sit on the chair so hips are positioned at approximately 90° with the back supported Sit approximately a fist-distance away from the tableAND Table height adjusted so that forearms rest on the top without the need to lean forwards (too low) or raising the shoulders/arms (too high) Surface clean, smooth and uncluttered Consider introducing a writing slope to help with wrist position and posture (remember to adjust seating height to higher position if introducing slope). With the table at the correct height, the forearm is supported making it easier to control the movement of the writing hand and wrist so reducing fatigue. Having the table too high will force the child to raise their shoulders inducing greater fatigue: having the table too low will cause the child to slump forwards increasing strain on the trunk, neck, arm, wrist and fingers making it more difficult to make controlled precise movements. The child will also slump forwards if their chair is set too far back from the table, regardless of chair and table height.

Standing desks are being introduced at some schools to encourage activity as part of measures to improve health and behaviour. Whilst chair height is not relevant for standing desks, having the desk at the correct height remains important for good posture when writing.

By ensuring correct posture and position at an early stage, including for pre-writing activities, good practice is introduced. This facilitates the development of writing skills as the child grows and the demands on handwriting become more (kidzoccupationaltherapy.com)

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Children and adults can be seen to use a wide range of different pencil grasps, often because they have not learnt differently or as compensation for postural instability elsewhere. Holding the pencil too close to or too far from the tip or holding too tightly will cause tension and thereby difficulties with handwriting. An inefficient pencil grasp will cause discomfort, impacting motivation, fluency and legibility and create difficulty sustaining speed.

When developing handwriting skills, the child needs to see the pencil nib to monitor their writing. Adopting an appropriate pencil grasp and wrist position will help them to do this, especially if left-handed.

There is a wide range of specialist pencils, pens and adaptive grips available to purchase. A more detailed guideline can be found in the NHA booklet entitled ‘NHA TOOLS’ (available soon from www.nha-handwriting.org.uk). However, focusing on the writing tool alone will not solve handwriting difficulty – take care when recommending specialist pens and pencils and trial several options as what helps one writer may cause greater discomfort for another.

onerous. Correcting bad habits later is more difficult for both child and teacher and takes longer.

2. Pencil graspBefore a child is asked to write, it is important that they are developmentally ready to do so. The teacher will be able to assess when a child has developed the essential skills. In Early Years, most children will manage pre-writing tasks only, which are designed to introduce the basic movements and ‘feel’ required for writing. Asking a child to hold a pen or pencil and write before they are developmentally ready can create difficulties with handwriting when they are older.

When appropriate, introducing the correct pencil grasp is beneficial for developing fast, efficient, legible handwriting in the longer term. A dynamic tripod grasp, with the pencil held between thumb, index and middle finger is considered optimal as it provides greater stability, but allows the precise movements needed to form letters. To be effective, this grasp must be supported by a stable wrist resting on the writing surface and positioned below the writing line.

PENCIL GRASP GUIDELINE:

Check the child is developmentally ready before asking them to write A dynamic tripod pencil grasp is the most efficient and is expected by end of Year 1. Address an inappropriate grasp in the early learning stages and later if it is causing discomfort or impacting speed Consider corrective action using adaptive grips or specialist writing tools, but always trial several options to find the most appropriate

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Handwriting Today 45

3. Paper position Having the writing paper positioned correctly and stabilised with the non-writing hand is as important as pencil grasp for sustained handwriting. When writing, the wrist and hand will naturally step along a left to right path across the paper, but at an angle to the body. Optimally therefore, the writing paper should be positioned so that the hand can follow this natural path. For a right hander this will be to have the top left corner of the paper angled down to the left. For a left-hander, the opposite is best, having the top right corner angled down to the right. Also the paper should not be directly in front of the child when writing, but slightly offset, to the right for a right hander and to the left for a left hander. By having the paper at an angle and offset slightly, the child is more able to see what their hand is doing when writing and their wrist will step along a more comfortable path.

Correct paper position is vitally important during the early years of handwriting development, as bad practice can lead to compensatory strategies, such as hooked-wrist in left-handers, which are difficult to remedy in later years.

Lighting, Glare and Visual StressIncorrect posture and writing position will tend to cause fatigue when writing and introduce

Tips forTeaching

compensatory strategies impacting legibility and presentation. However, ocular motor (eye movement) difficulties will also tend to be fatiguing, especially when having to be focussed on an extended writing task. If a child rubs their eyes frequently or complains of headaches when writing, it can be a sign of visual acuity or ocular motor difficulties. An eye test will detect visual acuity difficulties, but other factors can make the eyes work harder than they need to, causing fatigue.

Direct sunlight will tend to reflect brightly off white writing paper and create deep shadows depending on a child’s position in the class relative to the windows. Having to write in these conditions makes the eyes work hard to compensate for the fluctuating light levels. Some children will be able to cope with this better than others, but it is better to try to keep light levels as constant as possible. Using artificial light or blinds at windows can be effective and writing on coloured, rather than white paper, will reduce glare from reflected sunlight.

The teacher will be able to identify the best measures for each child, but ocular motor difficulties should not be ignored, as left unaddressed will tend to demotivate children to writing regardless of lighting levels.

PAPER GUIDELINE:

Tilt and offset the paper according to the writing hand Move the paper up or down to facilitate a comfortable reach Consider glare from paper and overhead lighting Consider a specialist vision assessment if visual stress continues

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writing paper and encourage the child to press less hard to avoid a carbon copy• Use a 2H pencil to give more sensory feedback so there is no need to press so hard • Use a mechanical pencil and encourage the child to press lightly so as not to break the lead• Use a grey lead pencil to shade in a picture using light grey, medium grey and dark grey. Then discuss how applying different amounts of pressure changes the shade of grey• Write on a single sheet of paper when writing at a desk or table. A firm surface can help to limit the amount of pressure the child can use. • Place a handwriting sample on the table that is “too dark”, “too light” and “just right”. Encourage the child to check their handwriting against the sample.

Light pressure• Use carbon paper underneath and encourage child to press harder to make a carbon copy• Use ‘light up’ pens and press harder so as to activate the light

4. Pressure The act of writing should leave a clear trace on the paper, neither too faint nor too dark. When learning to write, pencil pressure is likely to vary depending on the demands of the task and stage of development. Most children will learn through experience as to how much pressure they should exert through the pencil on to paper. Marks which go through to the next page can indicate excessive pencil pressure.

The manner in which the child holds the pencil can impact the amount of pressure exerted onto the paper when writing. Trialling a range of pens/pencils and grips can be a good place to start (see above). To help a child learn how much pressure to apply when writing the following activities may be beneficial:

Handwriting warm ups:Pressing too hard can be symptomatic of anxiety or tension. Providing guidance and encouragement for some simple exercises prior to and during the handwriting session such as chair lifts, palm presses, finger pulls or deep breaths can help.

Heavy pressure• Use carbon paper underneath the

PRESSURE GUIDELINE:

The just-right pressure eases writing across the page, which is important for fluency and reducing the risk of pain during handwriting Try some handwriting warm ups before and during the task Use teaching tools such as carbon paper, mechanical pencils and ‘light-up’ pens to demonstrate appropriate pressure

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Tips forTeaching

…….all the S Factors ……

Posters and flyers are available for purchase from the website(www.nha-handwriting.org.uk). There are different sizes suitable for classroom display and individual prompts.

Catherine Elsey, Jo Moore, Michelle Van Rooyen

The S Factors are the teaching steps which underpin the gradual development of legible, fluent and comfortable handwriting - the product. Beginning with the vital importance of teaching Shape (letter formation), the S Factors mirror the requirements of the National Curriculum for English (Writing) Key Stage 1 & 2, and offer a useful assessment tool for the Interim Assessment requirements for 2016.

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Handwriting Today 49

Handwriting in

the Media

Handwriting in the MediaCompiled by Ewan Clayton

‘Who Needs Handwriting’Small Business.co.uk kicked off the year on February 2nd with a run down of statistics for the state of handwriting in Britain today.i They reported a survey by Job-Site CV Library of 2000 of its users that 62.8 of users believe that future generations won’t write on the job – eliminating handwriting from the workplace. It quotes the NHA reporting that one in ten students don't own a pen, and continues ‘However, there are signs pen and paper are still valued in the workplace, with 73.3 per cent of UK professionals preferring a handwritten to-do list over an electronic one. More than half (55.9 per cent) feel that handwriting is important in the workplace for signing contracts, 98.5 per cent of professionals still use pens in the workplace, and 88.2 per cent of businesses still provide staff with pens and paper.’ It is the figure of 98.5% that is striking. This represents how things are now rather than speculation about possible futures. The current reality is that only 1.5% of work places don't involve the use of pens.

Headline fears about the disappearance of writing rippled round the world in 2016. The ripple followed the continued roll out of a programme by BIC, the pen manufacturer. Their ‘Fight for your Write’ campaign to ‘save handwriting’ has a further aim, to place more of the company’s pens in classrooms, but it has provided a focus for activism around handwriting in many countries. It featured four claims for handwriting: ‘increased creativity, better critical thinking, boosted self confidence, and a correlated improvement in reading capability with writing prowess.’ii In each country the programme has reached, BIC has focused on surveys asking parents of 5-11 year olds about their perceptions of writing and then enlisted the views of researchers within tertiary education. The campaign was active in the United States last summer and by the winter it

had reached Australia and New Zealand.

One interesting spin off in the press from BIC’s campaign was a long item in The Atlantic on the ball point pen.iii It was an experience based piece with the Canadian artist and teacher Josh Giesbrecht reflecting on how it felt to write with a biro compared to his recently rediscovered fountain pen. Over the course of his lifetime he had noticed a paradox - that his cursive script had become more disconnected and less joined up at the very time at university when he had to write the most. He wondered why this might be so. He attributes the effect to changes in his writing instrument of choice. Whereas a fountain pen ‘wanted’ to join letters, the biro he had adopted had to be pressed in to the page in order to write and this altered his rhythm and ligaturing. He quoted Rosemary Sassoon’s observation that a biro has to held more upright if it is to work properly, so the tool can also require a modified pen hold. Could the biro have been partly responsible for the death of cursive?

The debate about contemporary practice is certainly a fascinating one. Looking at the press on handwriting each day over the last year I could not help but notice a further paradox. On the one hand we have surveys such as the one commissioned by BIC showing more than half of primary school parents in New Zealand think handwriting will die out in 20 years' time, raising questions about how useful it is to teach it,iv and on the other hand frequent stories from the tech world highlighting the increasing penetration of handwriting software into the digital world as a way of interacting with technology. This year we will be able to handwrite directly on to the face of smart watches both on the Android and Apple operating systems, the ability to write on tablets and Ipads has increased, and on mobile phones too. We have also seen the introduction of the Apple pencilv and more

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powerful handwriting recognition software has been developed including algorithms that learn to recognize written forms much as humans do.vi Handwriting is fast becoming the newest way to interact with technology. Parents may fear the disappearance of handwriting but those developing our new technology seem to want to harness it for the future.

One of the stories that gained traction throughout the year was an argument for creativity that would deepen into handwriting as having a unique signature in the brain’s activity with possible far reaching implications.

In the autumn of last year, The New York Times (30/11) quoted our own Gwen Dornan, from the NHA, ‘“I think people are beginning to realize that the act of writing is an enormous part of general literacy. It does appear to use a different part of the brain than typing,”’ The context for the comment was an item on the new technology of smart pens, that appeared in the paper’s ‘Style and Fashion section’. ‘The pen may be an antiquated device for the texting generation, but for many it’s still relevant — and often prized — device for writing everything from a greeting card to a shopping list.’ But pens are evolving ‘Montblanc, the German company known for its luxury pens and leather goods, introduced the e-StarWalker writing instrument, which is compatible with the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 smartphone. The instrument comes with a flip cover for the Galaxy Note 4 that contains a digital identification chip, allowing the user to access fonts and various kinds of calligraphy and 3-D imagery from Montblanc templates, as well as a choice of six virtual fountain pen nibs and colors of virtual ink. Many of the nibs duplicate the intricate ones that Montblanc has created over its 90 years. The e-Starwalker comes with a device to switch the nib from

the screen back to paper,” Jens Henning Koch, executive vice president of marketing at Montblanc, said in a phone interview. “You can write a letter on a weekend and then use it during the week with your device at work.’ Mr. Koch noted that the system allows the added benefit of sending a note in the writer’s own handwriting, something that might be comforting and special to the receiver. And, “when you write something, you reflect,” he added. “A traditional note is a very personal statement.”vii

Simon Jenkins, writing in the Guardian (20/8), expressed similar views and ended with a plea for beauty:

‘Handwriting should be free. It is the outward manifestation of an individual personality. For instance, computers may claim to “read” personal signatures written in single letters. One day they will prefer digital prints or eyeball recognition, but such signatures have all the character of a train timetable. We love to sign our names with a unique and possibly indecipherable squiggle. It is our icon, our private hieroglyph.

Handwritten text is an expression of meaning. A love letter conveys its message in its calligraphy, declaring itself in curls and swoops, in size and tilt, in long pauses and fast scribbles. Claims that a handwriting analyst can really “decode” such script are to me dubious. What I am sure of is that any communication confined to printed fonts loses a wealth of significance in translation’.

I suspect that the triumph of printed writing will be short lived. Perhaps it is paper and post offices that are on the way out, and handwriting on screens will catch on. Perhaps separated letters will merge back into the cursive under the

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Handwriting Today 51

demand for speed. New scripts and spellings will evolve. Writing will change, like any language, fashioned by practiceviii to the conveyance of sense. Please just let it be beautiful.”

In the Times Educational Supplement (31/1) Roshan Doug reflected on his experiences learning both Punjabi script and handwriting in English and argued that ‘Ultimately, cursive handwriting can provide you with a sense of connectedness; it can open your imagination and reflect your identity in the shape and construction of your printed words’. Denying our pupils this means of expression robs them of ‘a form that individualises them’. As a poet he regrets this potential loss.

As the academic year drew to its conclusion the argument for beauty was often balanced with writing about the new neuro-scientific research on handwriting. The New York Times (20/6) had the most solid commentary in an article headed ‘Why handwriting is still essential in the Keyboard age’.ix It was followed up by a substantial piece in the Daily Mail (22/6) ‘Why the Ipad generation still needs to write’.x

The New York Times article quoted Dr Berninger of Washington University ‘ “This myth that handwriting is just a motor skill is just plain wrong,” Dr. Berninger said. “We use motor parts of our brain, motor planning, motor control, but what’s very critical is a region of our brain where the visual and language come together, the fusiform gyrus, where visual stimuli actually become letters and written words.” You have to see letters in “the mind’s eye” in order to produce them on the page, she said.’

‘Karin James, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University, did brain scans on children who did not yet know how

to print. “Their brains don’t distinguish letters; they respond to letters the same as to a triangle,” she said.After the children were taught to print, patterns of brain activation in response to letters showed increased activation of that reading network, including the fusiform gyrus, along with the inferior frontal gyrus and posterior parietal regions of the brain, which adults use for processing written language — even though the children were still at a very early level as writers.’

‘But can we actually stimulate children’s brains by helping them form letters with their hands? In a population of low-income children, Dr. Dinehart (from Florida International University) said, the ones who had good early fine-motor writing skills in prekindergarten did better later on in school. She called for more research on handwriting in the preschool years, and on ways to help young children develop the skills they need for “a complex task” that requires the coordination of cognitive, motor and neuromuscular processes.’ This is the kind of research that underlay BIC’s campaign claims.

The article concluded, “What we’re advocating is teaching children to be hybrid writers,” said Dr. Berninger, “manuscript first for reading — it transfers to better word recognition — then cursive for spelling and for composing. Then, starting in late elementary school, touch-typing.’

The interesting thing here is that the debate is becoming more nuanced, both about the complex sets of skills that need to be acquired and, as we saw earlier, about the directions that future technology may take us.

For those of us interested in the neuroscience around writing I recommend a radio programme

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‘Who needs handwriting?’ If you have time to follow up on only one thing in this review this might be it. It would certainly get a discussion going amongst those who listen together. You can listen, or read the transcript, on the Freakonomics websitexi for February 10th. What I found fascinating - listening in person to many of the researchers whose comments we read about in the press - is that here they speak to their own ideas and usually at greater length than in the papers. The station is based in the USA, so it reflects the debate over there about the introduction of the common core curriculum, but there is much more than this within this podcast.

Now for a few lighter topics. Throughout the year Donald Trump’s signature took quite a pasting from the graphologists! The best visual is in The Washington Post (15/9).xii Its HUGE, yes I mean HUGE!

ITV screened comments in January from Prince William about his father’s ‘terrible’ handwriting, but in the process reveals he wrote to his boys at Eton, sometimes at midnight, falling asleep in the process. As someone who has had a letter from his Dad every Monday for the last 48 years I connected with the commitment to written communication that this revealed.

London’s early history has been given a new chapter through the discovery of ‘hundreds of Roman wax tablets’ found during excavations for Bloomberg’s new headquarters at Mansion House. It was widely reported (3/6) in The Times,xiii the Daily Mailxiv and on the BBC but I refer you also to a local paper The Oxford News who interviewed the scholar who deciphered them. With only 19 tablets having been found up to this point the discovery of some 410 more represents a quantum leap in the information we have about a slice of history soon after the

foundation of Londinium in 43AD. The earliest datable fragment (now the earliest handwriting known in Britain) comes from January 8th 57AD; it's a financial record. The writing is in a form of quickly written Roman capitals known as old roman cursive, the shapes of the letters are broken into strokes that made sense to write in the wax material with which the tablets were covered. The letter O, for instance, can often be made in two strokes, looking a bit like a pair of brackets.

From the 1st century to the 21st - an item broadcast by ITV caught my eye in January (9/1).xv Artist Rosalind Wyatt, a textile artist who had originally trained as a calligrapher, was creating a modern day Bayeux Tapestry by stitching people's stories onto articles of clothing and shoes. She was looking for people to add to the collection, which already included one of Stephen Lawrence’s shirts stitched with the essay he was writing when died. Rosalind takes up the story: "The Stitch lives of London is a textile installation telling the story of London through text and textile. It will feature 215 garments hung together to form one complete tapestry to follow the path of the River Thames. Each garment features its story through the handwriting of the person who wore the garment. This is stitched by hand and by eye and this technique is called 'writing with a needle'".

And finally an interesting visual feast: The Atlantic ran an article in May ‘The Beauty of Handwriting’ (10/5)xvi featuring the handwriting of many of the artists in the Smithsonian collection. It’s an eclectic mix but it shows you how varied, individual and expressive handwriting can be.

i http://smallbusiness.co.uk/handwriting-at-work-under-threat-study-finds-2504501/

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ii http://time.com/3982285/bic-writing-hand-benefits/

iii http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/08/ballpoint-pens-object-lesson-history-handwriting/402205/

iv http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/74756743/survey-suggests-handwriting-could-be-written-off-in-20-years

v Why handwriting recognition on the iPad isn't a joke anymore | Macworld

vi http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/science/an-advance-in-artificial-intelligence-rivals-human-vision-abilities.html

vii http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/fashion/desk-set.html?_r=0

viii https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/20/printed-word-handwriting-meaning-calligraphy

ix http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/why-handwriting-is-still-essential-in-the-keyboard-age/?r=0

x http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3651327/Why-iPad-generation-needs-learn-write-Experts-forming-letters-key-cognitive-process-reading.html

xi http://freakonomics.com/podcast/who-needs-handwriting/

xii https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2015/09/03/trump-signed-the-pledge-what-story-does-his-handwriting-tell/?utm_term=.9bd21cad2218

xiii http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/earliest-handwriting-in-britain-found-on-roman-tablets-dnc6g6jjm

xiv http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3619586/Earliest-handwritten-notepads-unearthed-London-Discovery-410-wooden-tablets-provides-glimpse-life-city-s-earliest-Romans.html

xv http://www.itv.com/news/london/2016-01-19/artists-call-for-garments-with-a-story/

xvi http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/07/the-art-of-handwriting/488963/

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Berol by Papermate: NHA Corporate Memberwww.berol.co.uk

The Paper Mate Replay Premium Erasable gel pens feature Gel Ink Technology that ensures they erase cleanly and leave no mess or damage to the writing surface. Their ribbed grip gives a useful surface to encourage control while writing and the medium tip 0.7mm makes them ideal for older children to use. The pen tops have erasers and the packs contain bright colours alongside black and blue thereby encouraging art work which can be corrected. For additional economy they are refillable.

Eco-Eco: www.ecoecostat.co.uk

Eco-Eco is a price-friendly stationery company producing 100% recyclable products including A4 pockets and A5 presentation display booklets. The booklets are a good size for children who find handwriting challenging as they do not demand a large amount of content to be completed as they have 20 pockets for display.

Jimbo-Fun:www.dyspraxia-ed.co.uk

Jimbo-Fun is a non-profit organisation whose primary aim is supporting children with dyspraxia/DCD (Developmental Coordination Disorder) in education. Free advice and support is offered to teachers, professionals and parents via the dedicated helpline at Dyspraxia Education. All profits from Jimbo-Fun are used to run their helpline* at www.dyspraxia-ed.co.uk

The founders of Jimbo-Fun recognise that the most effective way to support children in schools is to ensure that all teaching staff are trained to

recognise dyspraxia and understand the impact on the individual child alongside the simple but effective strategies to help support them. Jimbo-Fun plays an important role in trying to dispel fears and misconceptions that interventions on behalf of these children will be costly and time consuming. It was devised and is run by Cathy Parvin who was trained by the National Handwriting Association (NHA) and now organises INSETs for teachers. The CPD INSET training packages are a feature of the reach of Jimbo-Fun. Further information can be found on www.dyspraxia-ed.co.uk.

Jimbo-Fun currently has two resource packages and offers assessments in order that the right level of intervention can be established. Firstly, Junior Jimbo-Fun has been designed for children in Reception and Year 1 aged 4y 6m to 6y 0m.

Junior Jimbo-Fun has an initial assessment for Reception and Year 1 which aids the early identification of difficulties. There is an effective handwriting improvement programme which is easy to implement and has been designed to target the skills needed for handwriting. It also has a training film, equipment, certificates, a carry case, full notes and information on the helpline. It is suitable for both schools and parents to use. Price £99.99 (inc VAT) and £7.50 delivery. There is free delivery on multiple orders. All profits from the kits is used to help children with dyspraxia. The font style used by the children in their schools can be selected when ordering to avoid confusion when using the programmes: the continuous cursive font varies from the pre-cursive font in respect to lead in strokes.

The second package is called Jimbo-Fun and has been designed for children in Year 2 and above, aged 6y 6m - 10y 0m. It is currently priced at £119.99 (inc VAT) and £7.50 delivery, with free delivery on multiple packages.

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Jimbo-Fun was assessed by Jenny Thornton, Senior Paediatric Occupational Therapist, and Derek Styles, a Paediatric Optometrist, and deemed to be very promising. It was trialled using a large cohort of children and Specialist Teachers from the Worcestershire Learning Support Team. It is now being used extensively throughout the Worcestershire schools and the county OT Departments. There is much interest amongst SENCos, teachers and parents who report seeing a more positive attitude towards writing amongst the children who had been introduced to the programme. Jimbo-Fun starts with an assessment to establish a baseline. Together with an adult helper, the child works through six levels of daily exercises which take between 15-20 minutes and can either be administered as differentiated practice within the literacy lesson or as a separate intervention. This is essentially practiced daily because the child needs to build up muscles and develop co-ordination to work towards a successful outcome.

Comments about Jimbo-Fun from the children: ‘It’s great because it helps me a lot’, ’My writing doesn’t hurt anymore’, ‘My teacher put me on gold because of my writing’, ‘I wish I could keep doing Jimbofun I’m sad it’s finished’. Further information can be seen on the websites www.dyspraxia-ed.co.uk and www. jimbofun.co.uk or by contacting Cathy Parvin, Director Dyspraxia Education 07736000979 / 01905 676118

Little Brian:www.brianclegg.co.uk

Little Brian Paint Sticks provide an enjoyable, clean and convenient way to paint. They are water soluble, child friendly solid paint sticks that twist up and down like glue sticks. They glide smoothly on paper, card, glass, plastic and acetate. The colours are clear and bright. These

proved very popular with a group of children using them to decorate ‘stained glass’ designs on plastic to hang in the windows. They free the child to get on with the art work without using brushes and water which can prove difficult for some children. The paint sticks are also supplied in ‘Dayglo’ and ‘Metallic’ versions. The sticks have a satisfying silky feel when applying to the surfaces.

Magic Whiteboard:www.magicwhiteboard.co.uk

Dragon’s Den winners in 2006, Magic Whiteboard has developed their range of products and class packs of A4 Reusable Whiteboard Handwriting Notebooks as an alternative to mini whiteboards are now available. They are feint-ruled with handwriting lines and have 8 easy to wipe clean pages. They are made from super smooth heavy paper and can be used with any dry marker or correctable marker. They also supply their own dry markers, which are retractable, non-toxic and refillable.

Nexus: NHA Corporate Member www.nexus-euro.co.uk

The Nexus ECO Writer Refillable Rollerball Pen incorporates an ergonomic grip designed to encourage good handwriting and can be used successfully by both left and right handers. The design encourages correct positioning of the fingers and less stress on hand muscles. They are packaged with both blue and black cartridges and have been designed with a clear pen barrel to allow for name cards to be put inside. The ink flows freely when writing at any angle. The use of cartridges allows the pen to be used multiple times rather than be quickly disposable and thus earns its Eco credentials. Spare cartridges are

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sold in bags of 300 thereby making the product classroom friendly and the pens can be ordered in boxes of 30. These prove very satisfying to move as they don’t slip around in the fingers and therefore don’t need to be gripped tightly. Nexus also have new triangular pencils in dark grey with a yellow end which have a non-slip surface.

Nexus are currently supplying School Kits to meet the needs of the classroom. They consist of the Nexus Peg to Pen School Kit and the Nexus Peg to Pen Early Years Kit. The kits include triangular pencils, triangular dustless chalk pieces, dry wipe writing boards and cloths, colour markers, pegboards and cards and link and lace boards for the younger children. 90 Eco Writers are included in the extensive kits for older children. More information on the contents of the kits can be found on their website.

Pentel:www.pentel.co.uk

Pentel recently introduced the Slicci Metallic Gel Pen range. These pens have ultra-smooth flowing pigment gel ink which is quick drying. The popular 0.8mm tip gives approximately a 0.4mm line width. The barrel is sleek, attractively coloured and shorter in length than previous ranges. The ease of use and range of shimmering metallic colours makes the pens popular with a wide range of pupils. They are available in gold, silver, metallic green / brown / violet / sky blue / red and pink. Excluding the ink, these pens have been made from 87% recycled materials. The 0.7mm tipped range gives approximately a 0.35mm line width. To compliment the metallic range, the Pentel Extra Fine Paint Markers prove useful for art work when wording is required or fine lines. They are available in packs of 12.

Also new to the market is the Kachiri which has a triangular latex-free grip. It is a retractable ballpoint pen giving a 0.5mm line. The Fiesta is an automatic pencil which has the advantage of having a grooved finger grip and replaceable eraser. The new Energel Permanent is waterproof and useful for school trips outdoors in the British weather! It has a stylish modern look with a metal pocket grip. Pentel also has a correction pen named Correct Express which has a unique evaporation system giving a super quick even drying result. The line creates a flat surface for neat re-writing. There is a fine metal tip and application can be successfully targeted. The opaque white fluid provides excellent first-time coverage. As the ink is valve-controlled, there is no need for shaking and there are no resultant blobs. They are available in packs of 12.

Stabilo: NHA Corporate Member www.stabilo.com

New and unique to Stabilo is the EASYbirdy. It is an ergonomically designed fountain pen designed with left and right handed versions. The grip zone is made from non-slip material which promotes a relaxed hold. The nib can be fitted by the retailer at 3 different angles to provide the optimum hand posture to help avoid possible muscle fatigue. There are two viewing windows for monitoring ink levels. The standard cartridges contain erasable ink. The pens come in a range of vibrant colour combinations and are light to hold.

Staedtler: NHA Corporate Member www.staedtler.co.uk; www.teachersclub.staedtler.co.uk

New to Staedtler is their Staedtler Teachers’ Club. It is a free platform for primary school teachers

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to find and access free Staedtler product samples, curriculum-linked teaching resources and fun competitions to keep pupils busy and encourage them to develop a pride in their writing. Staedtler have been supplying the educational market for 50 years and their products include instantly recognisable products such as the yellow and black striped Noris HB school pencils. New products also include the packs of Noris colour pencils which have high-break resistance and can be successfully used by children who find pressure on the crayon difficult to regulate. They have an ergonomically soft surface and are easy to grip. These pencil crayons are made from Wopex in a new manufacturing procedure and the resultant homogeneous lead glides smoothly across paper. Their non-slip velvety line makes them attractive to pupils who usually find colouring difficult. They can be bought in packs of 12 or up to 288 of assorted colours with free sharpeners for classroom use.

Special Direct: NHA Corporate member www.specialdirect.comTTS www.tts-group.co.uk

New to the market is the pack of 5 Developmental Grips which range in size from 2.5 to 5.0 cm and are spherical in shape. They were designed by an OT to support individuals who have difficulty in organising and sustaining a functional grip on a writing implement. The largest grip allows a claw grip to be organised on the pen and as the motor skills and eye hand coordination for pen use increases, the size of the developmental grip reduces down. When the smallest size is mastered a chunky pen can then be tried. Notes on usage are included in the pack.

Also new to the market is the Comfy Read Write A3 sized clear or green plastic slope. It

has been designed to enable a child to work at the 20degree optimal angle when writing. The back of the slope has an additional compartment to hold a book for reading or referring to when writing. It can also be used to house a coloured overlay with room to put the reading book underneath for children with visual difficulties. The dimensions are width 30cm, length 35cm and maximum height 13cm. A pack of rubber feet is supplied to stop the slope moving on a table top and dycem or bulldog clips can be used to stabilise the paper and keep sheets in place.

Write Size:www.writesize.co.uk

Write Size produce a range of pencils made to scale for children’s hands. The pencils have been developed to lessen the strain on a child’s hand, by having a wider diameter, softer core and they come in three lengths. The first size is for children aged 2-6 years, the second is for 6-10 years and the largest is for 10+ years. The pencils are hexagonal in shape and grey coloured.

Apps and gadgets:The following apps have been published recently to assist with development of handwriting. These apps are not free, but are useful additions to the toolkit for anyone helping children learn to write.

• ‘Cursive Writing Wizard’ - by L’Escapadou Apps. Available for i-Phone, i-Pad and Android. This versatile app is a very visual aid to the development of cursive writing. Have a look at the YouTube demo for the different fonts, styles and features the app offers.

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• ‘Penpals at home’ – by Cambridge University Press – a book available from Amazon and other outlets with accompanying free app for i-Phone and Android. This book and accompanying app is useful for helping parents support the development of directionality for correct letter formation, enhancing what the children learn at school.

• ‘Squiggle Wiggle Writer’ – available from Amazon and other outlets. A motorised vibrating pen that provides additional sensory writer to help with proprioceptive and tactile awareness. Can be used as a motivation aid for children who are reluctant to use a pen or pencil.

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Suzanne Tiburtius BA MA

Our NHA colleague, Suzanne Tiburtius died on March 2, 2016 after suffering from Alzheimer´s for some years. Suzanne was an early member of the then Handwriting Interest Group (HIG), moving on to the executive committee by 1993 where she remained until too ill to contribute further.

Around the time she joined the NHA, Suzanne had moved down to Kent from Leicestershire where, she had worked some time as a teacher in both primary and secondary schools. In Kent she worked with the Schools Psychological Service which mainly focused on dyslexic pupils. When the newly formed Cognition and Learning Service began its function in primary and secondary schools in the county Suzanne was appointed as a member of the team, travelling to a designated number of schools and dealing mainly with issues of literacy. Whilst working in primary schools Suzanne became aware of the very poor standards of handwriting and developed her own approach to demonstrate that handwriting could and should be actively taught by teachers who were skilled in this respect. Suzanne was also very much involved with in-service training in the county, which inevitably revolved mainly round handwriting. She was particularly interested in helping the older pupils of 15 and 16.

A prolific and clear writer, Suzanne’s list of publications included “Write on Target: Cursive Handwriting - A Structured, Fast and Effective Way to Teach Handwriting” in 1993 and “Parents and Reading” in 1995. She also co-authored two books for the NHA: “Handwriting in the Secondary School: Not a Secondary Skill!” With Beverly Scheib in 2003 and “Developing a Handwriting Policy

for Your School: A Practical Guide” with Sheila Henderson in 2005.

In her latter years on the NHA committee, Suzanne came to specialize in the training of teaching assistants whom she regarded as crucial in raising standards in the classroom and the courses she ran for this particular group were always over-subscribed. She also held the role of Information Officer, responding to enquiries from the public, and in the days before email, handwriting her responses which she delivered to the post office by bicycle! Her dedication and level of expertise in the field of handwriting will be remembered by all who worked with her.

Angela Webb

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NHA Members’ Day and AGM, Saturday 5th March 2016 at Scope, London N7 9PWThe annual Members’ Day is now firmly established as an important event in the handwriting calendar. It is a great occasion for all members, including the corporate members from supportive companies and the NHA committee, to meet together to exchange ideas.

The programme follows a pattern that has gradually been honed to include a variety of elements: presentation of some current research to keep everyone up-to-date with new developments; demonstrations of practical experience from either individual or committee members - or both; the AGM of the association, which includes the Chair’s report to up-date members about the association’s activities during the year, and a session to discuss items of interest that have been raised by members during the day. There are deliberately generous refreshment pauses between the presentations to give time to look at the stands provided by many of NHA’s corporate members, to exchange views with other members and meet up with old friends.

The keynote presentation for 2016 was by Dr Christian Marquardt from Munich who introduced us to some fascinating research that gave many people pause for thought. He makes use of electronic tablets which, as been shown at previous Members’ Days, enable researchers to analyse the movements made when writing and therefore gain a greater understanding of the processes involved. One of his demonstrations – using one of the members present – clearly showed that the conscious effort to emulate a sample style of writing rather than writing the text freely resulted in slower and less rhythmical writing. This does question the value of copying exercises and the desire for ‘neatness’ that are so prevalent in much handwriting teaching. Perhaps we are teaching children to ‘draw’ letters (i.e.

slowly and carefully) and not ‘write’ (with rhythm and speed)? A transcript of Dr Marquardt’s talk can be accessed in the Members Only section of the NHA website and provides detail of other interesting discoveries he has made.

Pam Hulme, a member of the committee, treated us to an account of her work in supporting handwriting at two schools in her locality. She emphasised the pressures that are currently upon primary school teachers and how she sought to help them to develop fluent writers in addition to the other tasks required of them. Pam has a wonderfully patient, practical and clear-thinking approach that must be appreciated both by the teachers who are planning their strategies and the children she works with. Pam also explained the current requirements of the National Curriculum for handwriting and some of the changes to SATs assessment that will be in place this summer.

The second presentation of practice in schools was from two members from Cheshire. Megan Dixon, Director the Aspirer Teaching School Alliance, and Charlotte Clowes, Assistant Head and Key Stage 1 leader from St. Alban’s Catholic Primary School in Macclesfield, together introduced us to the work of the Bootcamp underway at Charlotte’s school, supported by the Aspirer Teaching School Alliance. They described the process of setting up and implementing their action research project and provided video examples of the children to illustrate their work. It was fascinating to see ideas based on research being played out in practice.

There was a lively buzz throughout the refreshment breaks when members were networking with others, holding discussions at the corporate members’ stands and collecting samples - including a copy of the new poster that NHA has published this year. This summarises important elements in handwriting teaching: ‘P’

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Checks (reminders about posture and position etc.) and ‘S’ Factors (a checklist of points to consider while writing – size, spacing etc.) which we hope will be of help to busy teachers.

Date for the Diary: Next Members’ Day will be on Thursday 4th May 2017.

Gwen Dornan, Committee Member

Minutes of the National Handwriting Association

Annual General MeetingScope, 6 Market Road, London N7 9PW

5th March 2016

Apologies for absenceEwan Clayton, Sheila Henderson, Joanna Moore, Melissa Prunty, Emma Sumner.

Minutes of the 2015 AGMThese were approved, accepted and signed.

Matters arisingNone

Treasurer’s Report • In 2015 there was a 22% increase in our surplus, as compared with 2014. Finances grew through increased membership, courses, donations, advertising and sales.• There has been an increase of 18% in subscriptions. Membership is world wide (17+ countries). Subscription fees have risen, as was agreed.• Advertising through the journal has increased 25% from 2014 and shows a 10 fold increase in the last 5 years.• In-depth course. The Halifax course ran at a loss last year, but the London course

pulled in a rewarding surplus.• Members’ Day is now showing a profit.• Operational expenses include paying our dedicated Administrator and Finance Officer and covering the costs of executive and sub-committee meetings. Telephone conferences are used where possible to minimise costs.• The increase in our income means that our accounts will need to be examined. They do not require an official audit, however.

The accounts were proposed as a true and proper record of the charity’s finances. They were passed unanimously.

Additional comments from the Chair • We have kept a strict rein on our activities for a number of years in order to limit expenditure.• We are now in the position of being able to think about the best ways of making use of our increased income. These might include: ◦ training for Teaching Assistants ◦ reducing the cost of courses for professionals ◦ developing our regional network.• Other ideas from members would be welcomed. Following Dr Marquardt’s presentation one suggestion made was a publication on the subject of movement, linking it to the question of joining handwriting. A working party could possibly be set up to look at this matter in greater depth.

Chairman’s Report (attached)• In addition to the information contained in the written report, which was read to the assembled members, Angela Webb reported that a meeting is to be held with

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Communicate-Ed to see if we can collaborate to provide an on-line course along the lines of the in-depth course.• There was a special presentation made to Gwen Dornan for all her work and support over the years. Gwen is willing to remain on the committee, but is stepping back from some of her responsibilities.

Election of officers

Chair: Angela Webb. Proposed by Bob Erhlanderr Lawrence. Seconded by Dr Sidney Chu.Agreed unanimously.

Vice-Chair: Catherine Elsey.Proposed by Angela Webb. Seconded by Gwen Dornan.Agreed unanimously

Vice-Chair: Mary Howard.Proposed by Pam Hulme. Seconded by Lesley Harding.Agreed unanimously.

Honorary Treasurer: Bob Erhlanderr-Lawrence.Proposed by Catherine Elsey. Seconded by Michelle Van Rooyan.Agreed unanimously.

Honorary Secretary: Hilary Cook. Proposed by Laraine Erhlanderr-Lawrence. Seconded by Gwen Dornan.Agreed unanimously.

The Committee. The rest of the committee were returned en bloc, unanimously.

Any Other BusinessNo matters raised.

Date of next AGMThe next Members’ Day and AGM will be on Thursday May 4th 2017.The moving of the date from March to May is necessary to allow for the examination of our accounts. Members’ Day/AGM will be held on a weekday. Records show that weekday meetings attract a larger number of attendees.

National Handwriting Association AGM

5th March 2016

Chairman’s ReportThis is the occasion when I have a chance to report the work of the NHA conducted through the year and I am always impressed when I go through the diary on how much has been achieved since we met at the last AGM.

To begin with I am happy to report that our membership continues to increase steadily. This is across all categories of membership and we are now represented in over 17 countries.

The website continues to be our main source of contact with our members and others and we are please to offer an addition to the home page in the form of live Twitter feeds. We also have YouTube clips of dynamic aspects of handwriting nearly ready, after some editing, to add. It has also been proposed by some committee members to add a regular blog to that.

An exciting development this year is, as was mentioned at the start of the day, the extension of our reach. First, a new regional interest group has been set up in West of London Handwriting Group by Dr. Mellissa Prunty of Brunel University. The inaugural meeting attracted over 80 participants,

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many of whom expressed interest in helping to run it in the future. We wish them well. In addition, a group of senior OTs approached us from Ireland, keen to set up an independent Handwriting Forum based on the NHA model. Starting in Galway, they have already gathered together a group of therapists, teachers and educational psychologists all interested in promoting this initiative. Mellissa Prunty and I went over to Galway in January this year to help launch the group and provide the content for their first two-day conference.

A further development has been the building of relations with other European countries who are also interested in the NHA model. In particular, researchers from Germany, Netherlands and Belgium met at a Writing conference in Amsterdam last year and again at the DCD conference in Toulouse. There was discussion about the possibility of setting up of a European Handwriting Forum. Following this, I was honoured to be invited to speak at the 1st International Handwriting Symposium in Bolzano in the Tyrol where further discussion regarding possible liaisons ensued, including also research psychologists from France and Switzerland. At this meeting, the issues surrounding handwriting in each country were shared and we all were surprised by the degree of commonality between the different countries. The purpose and practicalities of forming such a group have yet to be worked out but the enthusiasm is there.

Nearer home our day-to-day work continues. Our in-service training programmed continues and 14 schools have received training this year. Several have asked for return visits to keep the momentum of raising writing standards alive and I am delighted to report that Rathbone Primary School, who demonstrated their work at last year’s meeting, have since been rated “Outstanding” by Ofsted. We are fortunate to have four new in-service training deliverers helping with our work

in schools since we last met and continue to hope for more.

We delivered our in-depth ‘Teaching and learning of handwriting’ course in March in London last year and then in Halifax in July. The course is currently running in London with a full number of delegates. At the request of last year’s participants. A 6th day has been added to the schedule to allow for discussion on Exam Concessions and for greater interaction between participants. Requests for this course have been received from Durham and Colchester this year but lack of resources on NHA’s part has constrained us. We are currently exploring whether we could offer the course online to meet the demands in different parts of the country and are holding talks with Communicate-Ed with this in mind for the future.

Our annual journal was well received again in the autumn. We are grateful to all those who contributed, particularly the section editors – Emma Sumner, Ewan Clayton, Laraine Erlanderr-Lawrence and Lesley Harding - who did an excellent job as always. We were able to debate the important topic of the value of reaching continuous cursive handwriting from the outset, something which is taking hold in many schools but which concerns many teachers and therapists. We hope that the arguments raised will be helpful to our members. Mellissa Prunty will take over the editorship for 2016 assisted by Meryl Coleclough, a handwriting tutor with editorial experience, and we are grateful to them both for their commitment.

Our publications list saw a new item this year – a ‘Tips for Teaching’ sheet on Keyboarding. Created from a journal article by Amanda McLeod and Simon Harwood, which discusses the relative merits of both modes of transcription, keyboarding and handwriting, this item offers

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practical strategies for teaching children to touch-type. Thanks to the drive of Michelle van Rooyen, the text for the new ‘Tools of the Trade’ booklet has been finalized and we are hoping to attract sponsorship from our corporate members to get that published. Finally, our new Schools poster – “P Checks and S Rules” – is to be launched today and is available for purchasing in three different sizes.

Our publicity team has new management to report. Gwen Dornan has stepped aside from her duties in this area after gallantly holding the fort for several years. Michelle van Rooyen has kindly taken her place and we have a new committee member to help her in Holly Swinton who completed the in-depth handwriting course last year.

Our tutor list, run by Mary Howard, is still in great demand and as always we need to recruit more tutors especially outside London. Please do let Mary know if you are available to work with children and would like your name to appear on that list.

Our outside work with other agencies – PATOSS, Dyspraxia Foundation, Dyslexia Action, Movement Matters and DCD UK - continues as before and for the first time we have been asked also to participate in World Literacy Day, coordinated from Australia. We are to attend a meeting about our role in this at the beginning of next month.

I spoke last year of our concern that handwriting would no longer feature in the university teaching at the Institute of Education here in London now it has amalgamated with University College London. However, the news is here is better than expected: Motor Development and Handwriting are still taught on two Masters courses and on the Ed Doc course for prospective Education

Psychologists. Lecturers who have attended our courses using our materials so we are encouraged that the influence continues are teaching these modules.

We have items of personnel news to report. First, we received the very sad news late last year that one of NHA’s founder members, physiotherapist Jane Taylor, had died after falling from her bicycle on her way to the beach in her beloved Dorset. Jane started the Handwriting Interest Group, as NHA was formerly known, with her teacher friend, Jean Alston. They began by meeting after work nearly 40 years ago to discuss their concerns that handwriting needed to be nurtured if it was going to survive. From this it grew in size and influence and the NHA was born. Although Jane had reduced her work for NHA lately, she always inspired us and she was regarded by all as a friend as well as close colleague. She is greatly missed.

We would like to congratulate Amanda McLeod on her new baby, Rowan, and look forward to having her back with us after her maternity leave is complete. We have a new member on the committee, Holly Swinton, and in addition, we hope that both Meryl Coleclough and Charlotte Clowes will find time to join us in the coming months. We are grateful to them for their ideas and enthusiasm. At this point I would like to show my appreciation to all those who work on the NHA committee. They give their time and expertise most selflessly and the impact of their work is felt throughout the year. In addition I must thank our two employed offices, Karen Nicholas and Laraine Batemen, for their dedication and immensely hard work day to day. I am extremely grateful as always to all of them and on your behalf acknowledge our gratitude.

Angela Webb. Chair of the National Handwriting Association. March 2016

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ISC SEN Conference 12th November 2015London

The recent annual conference in London marked the 10th anniversary of this prestigious event which is aimed at SENCos, Directors of Learning, LS staff and SMT members who wish to enhance their understanding of SEN provision in their schools. Also included was a wide-ranging exhibition and an opportunity to network. Barry Huggett OBE, Chair of the ISC SEN Group, opened the conference and introduced a wide range of speakers including Lindsay Peer CBE speaking on the use and interpretation of EP reports; Fintan O’Regan on successfully managing ADHD; Dr Tilly Mortimore on tailoring study skills to match individual learning needs; Sue Webb and Louise Wood from Ease Training on the use of IT with dyslexics and dyspraxic pupils. The sessions were followed by an address by Delyth Lynch on Mindfulness and an important legal update by Tracey Eldridge-Hinmers, Veale Wasborough Vizards on SEN, Disability and Reasonable Adjustments Duty. The ISC SEN Conference this year is being held on 18th November 2016 (iaps.uk/courses) and includes Troubleshooting handwriting difficulties by Catherine Elsey, Vice Chair NHA and Occupational Therapist. Also to support handwriting this year is an input from Jenny Lim, Senior Occupational Therapist and SENCo, Fairley House School. The new conference looks very exciting and invaluable to all in the field of supporting children and young people in schools with SEND.

Laraine Erhlanderr-Lawrence. SENCo

10th International conference of the British Dyslexia AssociationMarch 2016Oxford

Attended by 600 delegates, this conference reviewed and discussed current issues in the field of dyslexia with many presentations including the impact of handwriting difficulties.

Highlights of this conference for handwriting included Prof. Marketa Caravolas presenting a discussion on the relationship between quantitative and qualitative measures of handwriting. Prof. Sonia Kandel provided evidence of the interaction between spelling and handwriting processes in children with and without dyslexia.

Dr. Olivia Afonso. Early Career Research Fellow

The SIG Writing Conference June 2016Liverpool Hope University The SIG Writing conference is held every two years and is a forum for sharing research on writing more generally but includes research on handwriting and typing. The conference programme reflected the current role of technology in writing and in particular there were some interesting studies on typing, writing on tablets and speech to text software.

TypingLuxi Feng and colleagues in the United States presented a meta-analysis of the contribution of handwriting on writing and whether handwriting can be replaced by keyboarding.

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They analysed the contribution of handwriting fluency to writing development and explored the relationship between handwriting and keyboarding. They found that handwriting fluency contributes to writing significantly and consistently. They also found that performances on fluency of handwriting and keyboarding were significantly related, especially on speed. They emphasised that writing performance can be improved if students receive handwriting instruction and that keyboarding is an accessible alternative.

TabletsSabrina Gerth and colleagues in Germany examined the influence of the writing surface. They examined pre-schoolers, second graders and adults writing on a tablet compared to paper. They recruited three groups with varying levels of handwriting automaticity and administered three tasks measuring: grapho-motor abilities, visuo-motor abilities and handwriting performance. All tasks were performed twice, once on a tablet with a pen and in a separate session on paper attached to a tablet. Online measures (e.g., writing duration, writing velocity, strokes and number of inversions in velocity were collected. The comparison between tablet and paper surfaces revealed a faster writing velocity for all groups and all tasks on the tablet. They concluded that the smoother tablet surface presents an additional challenge for handwriting learners because it requires additional control of handwriting movements.

Speech to Text SoftwareKatrina Haug & Perry Klein (Canada) looked at the effect of speech-to-text software on learning a new writing strategy. The study tested the effects of composition modality on learning a persuasive writing strategy. They asked students to complete six lessons in one of two modalities: speech or handwriting. The results

suggested that speech to text software could be an effective tool for teaching composition strategies, but that its effectiveness depends on students' familiarity with the software.

HandwritingMichael Fliesser & colleagues in Germany examined the influence of motor abilities on early handwriting. They tested 41 pre-schoolers in early handwriting (copying loop patterns), non-loco-motor stability (one-leg stance and sitting on a stool without touching the floor), loco-motor abilities (variation in gait speed and jumping), manipulative abilities (throwing and catching) and manual dexterity (posting coins and threading beads). Regression analyses showed that early handwriting performance was primarily influenced by manipulative abilities and manual dexterity. Loco-motor abilities exhibited no effect. They concluded that motor abilities, specifically manual dexterity, seem to be influential for early handwriting.

Interesting Research QuestionDavid Galbraith & Veerle M. Baaijen (United Kingdom) considered the effects of reduced visual feedback on writing. 90 undergraduate students were given 30 minutes either to write an essay about one of two current affairs topics or to make notes in preparation for an essay. Half the students wrote as normal; the other half wrote using an inkless pen. However, there were no significant effects of reduced visual feedback on quality of writing. By contrast, there were significant effects on the generation of ideas, with writers in the reduced visual feedback condition retaining more of the ideas produced before writing, and generating fewer new ideas after writing. These findings indicate that, although writers may be able to maintain the linguistic quality of text when writing with reduced visual feedback, they achieve this by adapting the way they generate their ideas

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during writing.

Dr. Mellissa Prunty. Lecturer in Occupational Therapy, Brunel University.

Developmental Coordination Disorder UK Conference. 22nd-23rd July 2016University of Leeds

The 6th Biennial conference of DCD UK entitled ‘From Identification to Support and Intervention’ was well attended and brought together professionals from all over the world, from a range of disciplines to share research findings and discuss issues relating to all aspects of DCD. It was an extremely well organised event with welcome drinks hosted by David Sugden and a conference dinner. The informative and thought-provoking keynote speeches, oral presentations, focus groups and posters captured the attention of delegates, provoking discussion, reflection on current practice and sharing of the practical applications of the theory and research.

One of the keynote addresses was given by Amanda Kirby, University of South Wales, well known author and clinician. She outlined the impact a rocky motor profile continues to have for a child with DCD into adulthood when the scaffolding support structure of parents/school/services reduce but the demands of adult life increase. The accumulative effects of DCD on a person’s participation in daily life, sports, education/employment, friendships, and mental well-being were explored.

Dido Green from the Department of Occupational Therapy, Tel Aviv University and Centre of Rehabilitation, Oxford Brookes University presented research on the comparisons of upper limb kinematics and writing performance among

children with and without DCD; Handwriting versus Keyboarding. Children with DCD spend more hours writing than their typically developing peers because it physically takes them longer, the rules of writing are not embedded; their movements and writing postures differ. This research showed that for a child with DCD, the spacing of work, writing postures and movement patterns that are evident in writing by hand are also evident in keyboarding,. A keyboard is not necessarily going to eliminate all of the child’s difficulties. Whether a child writes or types, the importance of accurate assessment and teaching for correct posture and technique was highlighted.

Melissa Prunty from Brunel University London presented her research into the impact of pauses on handwriting production for a child with DCD. She highlighted the lack of automaticity in handwriting, even with familiar words. Writing was predominantly un-joined in the child with DCD in comparison to their typically developing peer group. An intervention model approach rather than a consult model was recommended. It may be that a child with DCD will require access arrangements/additional time in writing-based school tasks because of the identified ‘pauses’. With the increased emphasis on joined handwriting in the National Curriculum, and Melissa’s research findings, what will this mean for a child with DCD?

Amanda Waterman from the School of Psychology, University of Leeds provided an overview of the unique Born in Bradford project which has monitored how multiple factors impact on the development in deprived multi-ethnic populations, tracking over 13000 families from pregnancy through life. Amanda highlighted some of the research looking at motor and cognitive development within the primary school population. The engineering perspective added an interesting dimension.

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The final keynote speech given by Bouwien Smits-Engelsman explored the purpose and use of handwriting in modern society, recent handwriting literature in context of the EACD DCD guideline and the Dutch guideline for handwriting intervention were considered. Bouwien gave an interesting insight into the studies that have used the Systematic Evaluation of Handwriting Problems (SOS) to evaluate the quality and quantity of handwriting. Practical examples using task orientated training in conjunction with self-evaluation to guide effective handwriting instruction was well received by delegates.

Two common themes arose at the conference, the first, in relation to children presenting with coordination difficulties having low Vitamin D levels and thus screening for this should be part of the DCD assessment process. The second related to raising fitness by increasing the opportunities for children with DCD to participate in sports and leisure. With the aim being to increase fitness levels, reduce secondary health problems, enhance mental well-being, reinforce motor skills, and foster social participation.

Lesley Harding. Occupational therapist

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Notes for contributors

General

• The journal is published annually and will normally be distributed to members during the autumn term.• In the first instance, potential contributors should contact the journal administrator (nha.handwriting@googlemail.com) by May of the year of publication to confirm suitability of subject content with the editorial team.• All copy should be sent to the editor no later than mid July in the year of publication.• Copy will need to be circulated to individual section editors well in advance of this date in order to allow for any changes that need to be made.• Every attempt is made to agree changes with individual contributors. However, last minute changes may need to be made in order to allow for aspects of layout and design.• All copy should include the following details: name of contributor, profession and place of work.• All copy should be sent electronically via email.

Format

• All documents should be produced in Word and should be PC compatible.• The preferred font is Times New Roman size 11.• All copy should be free from justification or tabs and single line spacing should be used.• Headings should be in bold print using lower case lettering.

Articles & reseach papers

• There should be a maximum of 3000 words, excluding references (unless otherwise agreed).• References should be submitted in APA format:

Books: Argyris, C. (1990). Overcoming organisational defences: Facilitating organisational learning. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Journals: Bartram, P.& Wolfendale, S. (1999). Educational Psychology Services: The pursuit of quality assurance. The Role of service level agreements. Educational Psychology in Practice, 15 (1), 30-45.

Reviews

• The following details should be included at the beginning of each review: - Title - Author - Publisher (including address and other contact details) - ISBN - Price

• Reviews should be a maximum of 500 words (unless otherwise agreed).• Please include an overview of the product, its purpose, its intended audience and its usefulness.• Constructive criticism is welcomed; however reviews should be positive and respectful in tone.

ISSN 1744-036X

Handwriting Today - Number 15 2016

Published by the National Handwriting AssociationCharity Number 1051157