Abstract
The act of writing presents difficulties for 10-30% of elementary school children. This study's objectives were to compare the abilities of digitizer-based evaluation of the handwriting process and conventional evaluation of the handwriting product to discriminate between children with proficient and dysgraphic handwriting. Copied and dictated writing samples were collected from 3rd grade students, 50 with proficient and 50 with dysgraphic handwriting. Results indicated that both digitizer-based and conventional evaluations differentiated between children with proficient and dysgraphic handwriting, and that together they provided an improved understanding of writing difficulties. Moreover, copying and dictated writing task results differed significantly. The results demonstrate the advantages of combining both handwriting process and product testing, and utilizing both copying and dictation tasks, in order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding and superior evaluation of developmental dysgraphia.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 433-458 |
Number of pages | 26 |
Journal | Reading and Writing |
Volume | 17 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2004 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We would like to thank Dr. Esther Adi-Japha for her creative work in designing and programming the data collection and analysis program. We also thank Yaron Segal for development of the Matlab analysis modules, Gil Rosenzweig for assistance with the research design and statistical analysis, and Sarina Goldstand for editorial assistance. Financial support from the Israeli Ministry of Education is gratefully acknowledged.
Keywords
- Digitizer
- Dysgraphia
- Evaluation
- Handwriting
- School-aged children
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
- Education
- Linguistics and Language
- Speech and Hearing