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Does handwriting on a tablet screen affect students’ graphomotor execution? A comparison between Grades Two and Nine
Abstract
Alamargot, D. & Morin, M-F. (2015). Does handwriting on a tablet screen affect students’ graphomotor execution? A comparison between Grades 2 and 9. Human Movement Science. 44, 32-41
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016794571530021X
We sought to ascertain how handwriting with a plastic-tipped pen on the screen of a digital tablet affects graphomotor execution in students, compared with handwriting on paper with a ballpoint pen. We predicted that the modification to propriokinesthetic feedback induced by the screen/plastic tip combination would differently disturb younger and older students, who rely on perceptual feedback either to form letters (former) or to adjust movement execution (latter). Twenty-eight students from Grades Two and Nine 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 segment trajectory calculation in the younger participants and reduced control of muscular adjustment in the older children.
... Results indicated that traditional pen and paper instruction were superior in terms of teaching children letter formation, letter orientation, and letter recognition. Alamargot and Morin (2015) compared handwriting with a stylus on a tablet to paper and pen and found that handwriting on tablets led to decreased legibility and increased letter size regardless of participants' grade. Even digital applications that are similar to a pen and paper such as a tablet and a stylus can hinder learning handwriting because of the low degree of friction from tablets compared to paper (Alamargot & Morin, 2015). ...
... Alamargot and Morin (2015) compared handwriting with a stylus on a tablet to paper and pen and found that handwriting on tablets led to decreased legibility and increased letter size regardless of participants' grade. Even digital applications that are similar to a pen and paper such as a tablet and a stylus can hinder learning handwriting because of the low degree of friction from tablets compared to paper (Alamargot & Morin, 2015). Wollscheid et al. (2016) conducted a research review to examine the impact of digital devices compared to pencil and paper on the writing skills of primary school students. ...
... Additional findings from Wollscheid et al. indicate that earlier published studies show an advantage in using traditional writing tools such as pen/ pencil and paper compared to more recent studies that favor digital applications or are inconclusive. Although digital applications may seem abundant, currently there are no commercially available technologies that provide immediate feedback on applied forces on tip pressure, a problem often associated with handwriting difficulties (Alamargot & Morin, 2015). Further research needs to be conducted on digital *.These apps focus on teaching letters and numbers. ...
... The advance toward digitization in handwriting research is also visible in handwriting research methods. Whereas early studies focused on examining the handwriting product quality, there was a shift in recent years toward the assessment of handwriting process measures that are mainly recorded with tablets [9][10][11][12]. Tablets provide data on the real-time writing process as well as the writing product. ...
... We replicated previous findings in handwriting research with our method: experienced writers showed a greater writing velocity and lower NIVs than less-experienced writers [10,11]. Interestingly, we did not find a difference in pen pressure for adults and children. ...
... In the present study, we compared third and fourth graders with experienced adults. In contrast, Ref. [11] tested preschoolers as well as second graders and [10] researched handwriting in second and ninth graders. All of these child groups have a different level of writing experience and development. ...
Handwriting is a complex task that includes planning the content and the execution of
handwriting movements on paper or on a tool (e.g., a tablet). This execution depends on the involvement of specific muscles in the hand (distal) and arm (proximal). The present study combines the parallel recording of the writing process on tablets and the related muscle activity with electromyography to investigate the differences in handwriting movements in two groups. A total of 37 intermediate writers (third and fourth graders, mean age 9.6 years, SD 0.5) and 18 skilled adults (mean age 28.6 years, SD 5.5) participated in three handwriting tasks. The tablet data results replicate
previous findings in handwriting research for the writing process. The muscle activity data reflected a differential relationship between distinct muscle activity and handwriting performance depending on the handwriting skill (intermediate or advanced writers). Furthermore, the combination of both methods revealed that skilled writers tend to involve rather distal muscles to control the pressure of the writing pen on the surface, whereas developing writers mainly use their proximal muscles to control the velocity of their handwriting movements. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the underlying processes of handwriting and the development of efficient handwriting execution.
... for developing fine graphomotor handwriting skills [2]. Nevertheless, as still, 12% to 30% of children fail to acquire the motor skills for handwriting [15], which results in >30% of the girls and >50% of the boys having problems with fluid and legible handwriting [51], it is an important question how to improve learning how to write. ...
... Despite all these advantages, graphomotor handwriting skills can be negatively affected when writing is not trained traditionally with pen and paper [2]. This can be explained by the lower friction of a tablet screen when writing on it with a stylus or a finger [2,12,13,27,30,71]. ...
... Despite all these advantages, graphomotor handwriting skills can be negatively affected when writing is not trained traditionally with pen and paper [2]. This can be explained by the lower friction of a tablet screen when writing on it with a stylus or a finger [2,12,13,27,30,71]. A further issue is the transfer of skills as it is not trivial to practice with a stylus and a tablet and then write with the everyday standard pen and paper [3,42,66]. ...
Educational apps support learning, but handwriting training is still based on analog pen- and paper. However, training handwriting with apps can negatively affect graphomotor handwriting skills due to the different haptic feedback of the tablet, stylus, or finger compared to pen and paper. With SpARklingPaper, we are the first to combine the genuine haptic feedback of analog pen and paper with the digital support of apps. Our artifact contribution enables children to write with any pen on a standard paper placed on a tablet's screen, augmenting the paper from below, showing animated letters and individual feedback. We conducted two online surveys with overall 29 parents and teachers of elementary school pupils and a user study with 13 children and 13 parents for evaluation. Our results show the importance of the genuine analog haptic feedback combined with the augmentation of SpARklingPaper. It was rated superior compared to our stylus baseline condition regarding pen-handling, writing training-success, motivation, and overall impression. SpARklingPaper can be a blueprint for high-fidelity haptic feedback handwriting training systems.
... Acting with fingers could reduce the cognitive load devoted to the motor control during the writing digital task whereas acting with a stylus would increase it. Alamargot and Morin (2015) demonstrated that compared to the roughness of a paper sheet, the smoothness of a tablet lessens the friction between the pen and the surface of the tablet which reduces proprioceptive feedback when used with a stylus. This reduction of proprioceptive feedback implies a compensating strategy to control the executing writing movement (Alamargot and Morin, 2015;Gerth et al., 2016;Guilbert et al., 2019), thus increasing the cognitive cost allocated to the motor control to complete the task -the intrinsic load. ...
... Alamargot and Morin (2015) demonstrated that compared to the roughness of a paper sheet, the smoothness of a tablet lessens the friction between the pen and the surface of the tablet which reduces proprioceptive feedback when used with a stylus. This reduction of proprioceptive feedback implies a compensating strategy to control the executing writing movement (Alamargot and Morin, 2015;Gerth et al., 2016;Guilbert et al., 2019), thus increasing the cognitive cost allocated to the motor control to complete the task -the intrinsic load. According to cognitive load theory, using a stylus during a learning task should increase the intrinsic load by requiring supplementary cognitive resources allocated to the movement control, resulting in poorer creative performances. ...
... More precisely, children younger than 8 years have some difficulty in processing proprioceptive information, leading them to rely more heavily on visual rather than proprioceptive information during an action to control that the performed movement is consistent with the desired one (Bard and Hay, 1983;Contreras-Vidal, 2006). Studies have demonstrated that variation of afferent feedback modifies writing learning abilities in preschoolers (Patchan and Puranik, 2016) as well as motor control of action (Alamargot and Morin, 2015). Patchan and Puranik (2016) showed that using fingers on the tablet was the most efficient set thanks to an enhanced direct proprioceptive feedback on the tablet for handwriting learning. ...
According to some recent empirical studies revealing that creativity is linked to sensorimotor components, the current research was aimed at evaluating whether sensory afferences could modulate originality in drawing of children and adolescents. Sixty-nine children from 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 8th grades were required to produce a man who exists and a man who doesn’t exist with fingers or stylus on a tablet and with a pen on paper. Drawings were assessed with an originality scale comparing original drawings to unoriginal ones. Since, in comparison to drawings made on paper with a pen, drawing with fingers enhances proprioceptive information, this condition was expected, according to cognitive load theory, to favor originality in drawing by reducing cognitive resources devoted to motor control of the graphic gesture (lowering intrinsic load). On the contrary, since the use of a stylus involves a proprioceptive loss of information, which enhances intrinsic load by increasing cognitive resources devoted to motor control, it was expected that drawing with a stylus on the tablet would lead to the least original drawings. Results only partially confirmed these hypotheses. While the use of fingers on the tablet led to the highest original scores, using a stylus on the tablet did not impair originality in drawing of children and adolescents. On the opposite, the use of a stylus led 3rd–8th graders to perform better than with pen on paper. This modulation of the tool on originality does not confirm the hypotheses formulated in accordance with the cognitive load framework. However, it could be explained according to an embodied perspective of creativity considering the creative process as relying on a sensorimotor prediction process in which sensory afferences are central to generating and evaluate creative ideas. This research opens new avenues on creativity and proposes to consider the development of predictive motor control as a significant part of creativity development.
... In all these studies the children performed handwriting/drawing tasks on a paper using a special inking pen. In a few works, the authors utilised protocols, where children wrote on displays/screens using plastic nibs (this way of writing has already been proven to be different when compared to writing on a paper [1]). In 2022, Asselborn et al. employed the Apple iPad to overcome the conventional binary diagnosis procedure and to assess handwriting difficulties on a scale, from the lightest cases to the most severe [2]. ...
... In both cases, we optimized the models' hyperparameters using 500 iterations of randomized search strategy via stratified 10-fold cross-validation with 10 repetitions. The following hyperparameters were optimised: the learning rate [1,2,3,4]. Finally, the models were interpreted via the SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) [23] values of the top ten features. ...
Even though the computerised assessment of developmental dysgraphia (DD) based on online handwriting processing has increasing popularity, most of the solutions are based on a setup, where a child writes on a paper fixed to a digitizing tablet that is connected to a computer. Although this approach enables the standard way of writing using an inking pen, it is difficult to be administered by children themselves. The main goal of this study is thus to explore, whether the quantitative analysis of online handwriting recorded via a display screen tablet could sufficiently support the assessment of DD as well. For the purpose of this study, we enrolled 144 children (attending the 3rd and 4th class of a primary school), whose handwriting proficiency was assessed by a special education counsellor, and who assessed themselves by the Handwriting Proficiency Screening Questionnaires for Children (HPSQ C). Using machine learning models based on a gradient-boosting algorithm, we were able to support the DD diagnosis with up to 83.6% accuracy. The HPSQ C total score was estimated with a minimum error equal to 10.34 %. Children with DD spent significantly higher time in-air, they had a higher number of pen elevations, a bigger height of on-surface strokes, a lower in-air tempo, and a higher variation in the angular velocity. Although this study shows a promising impact of DD assessment via display tablets, it also accents the fact that modelling of subjective scores is challenging and a complex and data-driven quantification of DD manifestations is needed.
... The first limitation is due to the lack of published data on direct comparisons between MBC and HBC of quantitative GMPs (e.g., letter size). As for the second limitation, consistent research has been dedicated to developing tools that allow fully automatic extraction of GMPs, often resulting in systems that only provide, as output measures, composite scores, but little or no information on qualitative GMPs or individual characteristics of a child's handwriting [15]- [18]. A less commonly used approach is to rely on 'mixed systems', involving some form of human-machine interaction, to support rather than substitute human coder observation skills [19] . ...
... Notwithstanding such promising preliminary results, further analyses are needed to assess the impact of these tools on handwriting assessments. Indeed, multiple studies [15], [48], [49] have shown that different tools influence grapho-motor skills in multiple ways, and that these effects need to be closely monitored especially in children that are still acquiring skilled handwriting. ...
The acquisition of a fluid and legible handwriting in elementary school has a positive impact on multiple skills (e.g., reading, memory, and learning of novel information). In recent years, the growing percentages of children that encounter mild to severe difficulties in the acquisition of grapho-motor parameters (GMPs) has highlighted the importance of timely and reliable assessments. Unfortunately, currently available tests relying on pen and paper and human-based coding (HBC) require extensive coding time, and provide little or no information on motor processes enacted during handwriting. To overcome these limitations, this work presents a novel screen-based platform for Grapho-motor Handwriting Evaluation & Exercise (GHEE). It was designed to support both fully automatic machine-based coding (MBC) of quantitative GMPs and human-machine interaction coding (MBC+HBC) of GMPs accounting for qualitative aspects of a child’s personal handwriting style (i.e., qualitative GMPs). Our main goal was to test: the GHEE coding approach in a relevant environment to assess its reliability compared to HBC; the efficacy of human-machine interaction in supporting coding of qualitative GMPs; and the possibility to provide data on kinematic aspects of handwriting. The preliminary results on 10 elementary school children showed reliability of fully automatic MBC of quantitative GMPs with respect to traditional HBC, a higher resolution of mixed human-machine interaction systems in assessing qualitative GMPs, and suitability of this technology in providing new information on handwriting kinematics.
... Moreover, strongly dependent on lessons in school, learning to write letters by hand is also highly constrained by the development of gross and fine motor maturation allowing a dual function of (i) gripping the pen and (ii) using the hand, forearm and arm working in synergy to move it and trace the letter [44,69,149]. The evaluation of handwriting and their underlying skills in young students is generally carried out through a set of measures mostly standardized like motoric tests (fine and gross evaluation scales, [131,153]), visuo-motor tests [113,142] and even handwriting variables allowing to assess the legibility of a produced letter as well as the kinematics of its production [2]. Nevertheless, regarding the graphomotor control (i.e. ...
... Students were asked to write their firstname several times within 30 s, using their usual handwriting. This task is frequently used to assess handwriting, as it features the best known and doubtless most automatized letter sequence, allowing researchers to focus more purely and specifically on motor aspects [2,5,6,130]. The accuracy and fluency of letters production was assessed by the 4 following variables: % of legible (recognizable) letters, letter accuracy fluency (legible letters per min), pen movement speed, number of pen pauses per letters and mean pause duration. ...
This invited special session of IGS 2023 presents the works carried out at Laboratoire Scribens and some of its collaborating laboratories. It summarises the 17 talks presented in the colloquium #611 entitled « La lognormalité: une fenêtre ouverte sur le contrôle neuromoteur» (Lognormality: a window opened on neuromotor control), at the 2023 conference of the Association Francophone pour le Savoir (ACFAS) on May 10, 2023. These talks covered a wide range of subjects related to the Kinematic Theory, including key elements of the theory, some gesture analysis algorithms that have emerged from it, and its application to various fields, particularly in biomedical engineering and human-machine interaction.
... Graphomotor skills are the students' artistry necessary for writing down the learned instructions successfully. There are five individual skills associated with graphomotor: visual and perceptual, orthographic coding, motor planning and execution, kinesthetic feedback, and visual-motor coordination (Alamargot & Morin, 2015). While HOT is more than memorizing information but the sense of expression, i.e., making individuals think about a particular matter. ...
... HOT includes concept formation, concept connection, problem-solving through grasping the "big picture"; visualizing; creativity, questioning; inferring, creative, analytical, and practical thinking about the subject matter. Then metacognition is regarded as thinking about something, thinking, and knowing how students think about a particular activity, process information, and learn (Alamargot & Morin, 2015). But McNeill (2000) argued that emotions and motivations are the most critical components that support the learning process among AEC university students. ...
The outbreak of COVID-19 has adversely affected university students’ learning process, especially in developing countries like Nigeria. Consequently, many institutions have adopted social media for the learning process because of the COVID-19 lockdown. Hence, the current study aimed at assessing the influences of social media learning environments on the learning process among university Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) students during the COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown. Data was collected from the students of AEC-related courses using a structured questionnaire. Warp 7.0 PLS-SEM was used for the analysis of the collated data and model development. The study results indicated that the AEC students’ psychological capital (PsyCap) moderates the relationships between social media learning environments and the learning process among AEC university students in Nigeria. The results also showed significant influence change between the social media learning environments and the learning process among the AEC students in Nigeria. The study is limited to students in the AEC-related courses in Nigerian universities. Moreover, the results of this study could be helpful to other developing countries having issues with the use of social media learning environments. The study further recommends the training of AEC students on the use of resources in the social media learning environments for the positive developmental state of the student’s self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience.
... The quantity and length of these pauses gradually decreases as the writer depends less on feedback and more on the mastered motor programs. However, Alamargot and Morin (2015) found significant differences in writers' pen movements and pauses when writing on tablets, indicating that the unfamiliarity of a tablet screen's slick sensory feedback causes writers to become more retroactive, a sign of reversion to an earlier stage of writing proficiency. Conceptually, these findings are similar to those which have suggested that paper texture has a significant effect on writing speed (Chan & Lee, 2005). ...
... First, the finding that written production of kanji was not significantly impacted by the medium of practice at the posttest was surprising. Due to the background research that the different haptics and perceptual feedback of a plastic stylus on a glass tablet was thought to hamper the implementation of automatized writing processes (e.g., Alamargot & Morin, 2015), it was hypothesized that iPad users would show less ability to memorize the strokes of new kanji than their paper-based peers. One possible explanation for this parity is that, as naïve learners, none of the participants had yet automatized kanji writing to any degree. ...
Studies comparing writing media typically compare different modes of writing (e.g., keyboard typing vs. writing, smartphone tapping vs. writing, etc.). The current study sought to investigate the cognitive outcomes of a more direct comparison: tablet-versus paper-based writing. Thirty-two speakers of L1 English were tasked with memorizing 20 Japanese kanji (stroke orders, Japanese readings, and English translations). Ten kanji were practiced (10 times each) on paper; the other 10 were practiced on an iPad. The kanji that were practiced on paper were more likely to be correctly translated into English at both the post-and delayed posttest, though Japanese scores were statistically equal. Of most intrigue was that while both groups were written with equal accuracy at the posttest, only the kanji practiced on paper showed a significant increase at the delayed posttest (after a period of 24 hours). The results of exit questionnaires indicated that the participants were divided on their preference of writing medium but were unanimous in their agreement that tablets should have a place in modern classrooms. One significant finding is that participants acknowledge the difficulty of tablet-based writing but conclude that what is necessary is more practice-not the avoidance or abandonment of the technology.
... Graphomotor skills are the students' artistry necessary for writing down the learned instructions successfully. There are five individual skills associated with graphomotor: visual and perceptual, orthographic coding, motor planning and execution, kinesthetic feedback, and visual-motor coordination (Alamargot & Morin, 2015). While HOT is more than memorizing information but the sense of expression, i.e., making individuals think about a particular matter. ...
... HOT includes concept formation, concept connection, problem-solving through grasping the "big picture"; visualizing; creativity, questioning; inferring, creative, analytical, and practical thinking about the subject matter. Then metacognition is regarded as thinking about something, thinking, and knowing how students think about a particular activity, process information, and learn (Alamargot & Morin, 2015). But McNeill (2000) argued that emotions and motivations are the most critical components that support the learning process among AEC university students. ...
... The spatial resolution of both tablets is 0.25 mm, and a new dot is considered every 5 min ms (200 Hz sampling rate). Studies suggest that people write differently on paper than on screen [25], which led us to put a sheet of paper onto the tablet and an ink pen to better suit the usual writing conditions for the children. The children could write directly on the paper and had a visual feedback of their handwriting. ...
... The last one, The Loops, can be used to evaluate dysgraphia levels as it is close to real handwriting [29]. Studies suggest that people write differently on paper than on screen [25], which led us to put a sheet of paper onto the tablet and an ink pen to better suit the usual writing conditions for the children. The children could write directly on the paper and had a visual feedback of their handwriting. ...
Five to ten percent of school-aged children display dysgraphia, a neuro-motor disorder that causes difficulties in handwriting, which becomes a handicap in the daily life of these children. Yet, the diagnosis of dysgraphia remains tedious, subjective and dependent to the language besides stepping in late in the schooling. We propose a pre-diagnosis tool for dysgraphia using drawings called graphomotor tests. These tests are recorded using graphical tablets. We evaluate several machine-learning models and compare them to build this tool. A database comprising 305 children from the region of Grenoble, including 43 children with dysgraphia, has been established and diagnosed by specialists using the BHK test, which is the gold standard for the diagnosis of dysgraphia in France. We performed tests of classification by extracting, correcting and selecting features from the raw data collected with the tablets and achieved a maximum accuracy of 73% with cross-validation for three models. These promising results highlight the relevance of graphomotor tests to diagnose dysgraphia earlier and more broadly.
... Malgrado lo sviluppo delle nuove tecnologie, le ricerche mostrano che imparare a scrivere su carta è qualitativamente più efficace rispetto a tracciare le lettere su di un tablet. La superficie leggermente rugosa del foglio procura infatti un feedback cinestetico importante per la pianificazione e l'aggiustamento del gesto grafico (Alamargot, Morin, 2015). ...
Raccomandazioni relative all'insegnamento grafomotorio, stilate all'attenzione degli insegnanti del Canton Ticino. L'obbiettivo è di migliorare la coerenza sul territorio e di avvicinare insegnamento e ricerca.
... For instance, the increase in screenbased interaction seems to be leading to a decrease in manipulation and consequently fine motor skills, affecting writing. Indeed, motor skills are linked to executive functioning (EF) (Alamargot & Morin, 2015;Ghanamah et al., 2024). They share neural overlap, and better motor and aerobic levels are positively associated with higher EF (Best & Miller, 2010;Chaddock et al., 2011;Hillman et al., 2008). ...
This report explores the potential implications of rapidly integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications into children's environments. The introduction of AI in our daily lives necessitates scrutiny considering the significant role of the environment in shaping cognition, socio-emotional skills, and behaviors, especially during the first 25 years of cerebral development. As AI becomes prevalent in educational and leisure activities, it will significantly modify the experiences of children and adolescents, presenting both challenges and opportunities for their developmental trajectories. This analysis was informed by consulting with 15 experts from pertinent disciplines (AI, product development, child development, and neurosciences), along with a comprehensive review of scientific literature on children development and child-technology interactions. Overall, AI experts anticipate that AI will transform leisure activities, revolutionize education, and redefine human-machine interactions. While AI offers substantial benefits in fostering interactive engagement, it also poses risks that require careful considerations, especially during sensitive developmental periods. The report advocates for proactive international collaboration across multiple disciplines and increased research into how technological innovations affect child development. Such efforts are crucial for designing a sustainable and ethical future for the next generation through specific child-centered regulations, and helping to educate all potential stakeholders (regulators, developers, parents and educators, children) about responsible AI use and its potential impacts on child development.
... The smoother tablet surface demands enhanced control of handwriting movements. In another [95] study, it was noted that when young children use tablets for writing, there are challenges in accurately calculating segment trajectories, while older children seem to struggle with controlling their muscular adjustments. There are few studies [96,97] which reports there is no performance difference between writing on tablet and writing on paper. ...
Learning disabilities, which primarily interfere with basic learning skills such as reading, writing, and math, are known to affect around 10% of children in the world. The poor motor skills and motor coordination as part of the neurodevelopmental disorder can become a causative factor for the difficulty in learning to write (dysgraphia), hindering the academic track of an individual. The signs and symptoms of dysgraphia include but are not limited to irregular handwriting, improper handling of writing medium, slow or labored writing, unusual hand position, etc. The widely accepted assessment criterion for all types of learning disabilities including dysgraphia has traditionally relied on examinations conducted by medical expert. However, in recent years, artificial intelligence has been employed to develop diagnostic systems for learning disabilities, utilizing diverse modalities of data, including handwriting analysis. This work presents a review of the existing automated dysgraphia diagnosis systems for children in the literature. The main focus of the work is to review artificial intelligence-based systems for dysgraphia diagnosis in children. This work discusses the data collection method, important handwriting features, and machine learning algorithms employed in the literature for the diagnosis of dysgraphia. Apart from that, this article discusses some of the non-artificial intelligence-based automated systems. Furthermore, this article discusses the drawbacks of existing systems and proposes a novel framework for dysgraphia diagnosis and assistance evaluation.
... There have also been various studies analysing the writing skills of different age groups (14)(15)(16)(17)(18). The kinematic properties of children's handwriting have been studied in many different ways in the literature. ...
Purpose: It is of great importance to evaluate children’s writing skills, as this ability affects their academic achievement. Technological analysis methods can now be used to evaluate the writing skills of school- age children with low vision. The aim of this case- control study is to analyse the writing skills of children with low vision using a computerized program and to compare their results with those of their typically developing peers with normal vision. Methods: Eighteen school-age children with low vision and 24 children with typical visual development (n=42) participated in the present study. Each of the children wrote a 20-word sample standard sentence; the samples were then analysed using the MovAlyzR (Neuroscript LLC, USA) computerized analysis system (version 6.1) to describe the spatial and dynamic characteristics of their writing. Results: The mean age of the children with low vision were 9.72±2.11 years and the control group were 10±2.02 years. Statistically significant differences were found in the handwriting samples in terms of the average width of the letters, horizontal start, vertical start and length, respectively (p=0.000, p= 0.010, p=0.000, p=0.030). It was found that the results obtained in children with low vision were higher in these variables. This result is in favor of typically developing children with normal vision. Conclusion: The results indicated that the school- age children with low vision wrote letters of larger dimensions than their peers with typical vision. This may be due to the difficulty of discerning the spatial dimensions of handwritten letters or because of the diminished visual acuity in children with low vision.
... tablettes) connectées à un ordinateur portable et un stylo à bille magnétique (Modèle GP-110) ont été utilisées. À notre connaissance, ce type de tablette permet de se placer dans des conditions expérimentales les plus proches de conditions naturelles d'écriture, et limite la perturbation de la trajectoire (Alamargot & Morin, 2015). Pour chaque tâche d'écriture, une feuille de papier A4 a été fixée sur la tablette et nous avons fourni aux élèves un stylo à bille compatible avec la tablette. ...
Les enfants à haut potentiel intellectuel (HPI) peuvent avoir des troubles
d’écriture. Ce phénomène crée de nombreux mythes sur les performances
manuscrites de ces enfants. Nous avons étudié les spécificités de l’écriture
des enfants HPI non dysgraphiques et les avons comparées à des témoins
non-HPI du même âge. Nos résultats ne démontrent pas une supériorité
ou un déficit graphomoteur chez les enfants HPI cependant leur écriture
est plus lente en production libre.
... Writing with a stylus on a touchscreen generated poorer performance at reading and writing words than did keyboard training. One reason for this outcome could be the slippery surface of the touchscreen, which requires a greater effort to control movements (Alamargot & Morin, 2015). Alternatively, it is also possible that the poorer performance in the stylus group was due to less practice with this writing tool. ...
... We adapted the application so pupils may pose their palms as they do on paper. Another issue is the difference in friction of a pen on paper as compared to the more slippery movements of a pen on a tablet (Alamargot & Morin, 2015). To measure the impact of this difference, we asked children to write twice, once on a tablet and once on a piece of paper pasted on a tablet. ...
... A more recent meta-analysis by Ismail and Ghani (2021) highlighted the growing interest in the use of tablets to teach handwriting to children (7 of 13 studies focused on tablets) and the contrasting results of studies evaluating the benefits tablet use for writing [124]. Some research conducted over short periods of time (a few hours or few days) suggested that the difference in friction between writing on paper or a tablet disrupts the graphomotor strategies of children and adults [127,128], whereas other studies found positive results from learning to trace letters on a tablet with a stylus [129] or a finger [130]. Several hypotheses can be drawn from these studies, and further research is needed to identify why tablet learning degraded the handwriting of some children. ...
Handwriting is a determining factor for academic success and autonomy for all children. Making knowledge accessible to all is a challenge in the context of inclusive education. Given the neurodevelopmental diversity within a classroom of children, ensuring that the handwriting of all pupils progresses is very demanding for education professionals. The development of tools that can take into account the variability of the profiles and learning abilities of children with handwriting difficulties offers a new potential for the development of specific and adapted remediation strategies. This narrative review aims to present and discuss the challenges of handwriting learning and the opportunities offered by new technologies involving AI for school and health professionals to successfully improve the handwriting skills of all children.
... Legibility pertains to the ability to produce written scripts such that they are easily decipherable to the reader; albeit norms for well-formed, legible scripts are to some extent culturally determined (Kapoor & Saini, 2017). Whereas handwriting legibility is difficult to assess objectively, handwriting fluency is relatively easy to measure by recording the number of units (e.g., letters or words) written within a specified time frame (e.g., Alamargot & Morin, 2015;Pontart et al., 2013). The relative ease in measuring handwriting fluency using such tools as the Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting (Barnett et al., 2007) has led to it being more extensively studied and tested in the classroom and clinic (Lambert & Quémart, 2019). ...
Spelling and handwriting are related skills which are critical for writing but are typically assessed separately. Doing so makes it more difficult to understand their respective development. We describe the creation and evaluation of a tool for their concurrent assessment: the Spelling and Handwriting Legibility Test (SaHLT). We examined whether (a) sentence spelling and handwriting legibility could be reliable and valid, independent measures of English spelling and handwriting legibility and (b) whether spelling and handwriting legibility can be measured concurrently. A total of 1461 primary-aged children (Mage = 9.14 years-old, SD = 12.80) completed the SaHLT and background tests. The SaHLT was a sensitive, reliable, and valid measure of spelling and handwriting. Multi-group factor analyses revealed the test to be a robust concurrent measure. The SaHLT offers a cost and time saving method of measuring two key skills of writing. This is important for assessments in practice and for furthering our understanding of the relationship between spelling and handwriting.
... The strength of this task is a practical and ecological setting with an automatic capture of dynamic measures using a free digital pen on a specific sheet of paper placed on a table. This differs from studies on graphic tablets, which impose a restricted and rigid setting (no freedom of movement on the table), and a graphic movement that can be hampered by the thickness of the tablet or the way in which the pen comes into contact with the tablet, as demonstrated by several studies [38,39]. ...
Handwriting disorders (HDs) are mainly assessed using script or cursive handwriting tasks. The most common is the scale for children’s handwriting, with a French adaptation (BHK). The present study aims to assess the concurrent validity of a pre-scriptural task (copying a line of cycloid loops) with the BHK for the diagnosis of HDs. Thirty-five primary school children (7 females, 28 males) with HD aged 6–11 years were recruited and compared to 331 typically developing children (TDC). Spatial/temporal/kinematic measures were collected using a digital pen on a paper. Posture and inter-segmental writing arm coordination were video recorded. A logistic regression statistical method, including a receiver-operating characteristic curve, was used to assess the ability of the task to predict HD. Gestural patterns were significantly less mature in HDs than in TDC (p < 0.05), and associated with poorer quality, less fluid, and slower drawing (p < 0.001). Moreover, good correlations between temporal and kinematic measures and the BHK scale were found. Number of strokes, total drawing time, in-air pauses times, and number of velocity peaks showed very good sensitivity (88%) and specificity (74%) to diagnose HDs. Consequently, the cycloid loops task is an easy, robust, and predictive tool for clinicians to identify HDs before the alphabet is mastered.
... Esta es una adaptación favorable, ya que permite que la tarea de escritura se efectúe en un soporte más natural. Además, el uso de un lápiz de tintalápiz digital-(Barrientos, 2016) (Figura 1), especialmente diseñado para imitar la retroalimentación inmediata de la tinta real en el papel, permitió a los participantes escribir como lo hacen habitualmente, respecto de la posición corporal, el movimiento del brazo y de la mano (Alamargot & Morin, 2015), en una tarea típica de composición escrita en ámbito escolar. Siguiendo la convención común en esta área de investigación (por ejemplo, Kaufer et al., 1986;Chenoweth & Hayes, 2001;Alves, Branco, Castro & Olive, 2011;Connelly, Dockrell, Walter & Critten, 2012), las pausas fueron definidas como un período de inactividad de escritura que dura 2 segundos o más, mientras que una ráfaga correspondió al período de actividad de escritura entre dos períodos consecutivos de pausas en las que al menos se escriba una palabra. ...
To contribute to the discussion about the dynamics in the development of translation and transcription processes in writing (Berninger & Winn, 2006), it is proposed to characterize this process in children and preadolescents with TD and DLD, from an ontogenetic perspective. The study is quantitative with a descriptive-comparative scope with a non-experimental, cross-sectional design. A group of 85 schoolchildren from Valparaíso participated, considered according to: the condition (DLD or TD) and the age/grade (8 years/3rd; TD n=20 and DLD n=20; 11 years/6th; TD n=25 and DLD n=20). They are evaluated with two tasks recorded in real time using the Eye and Pen 3 software (Alamargot, Chesnet, Dansac & Ros, 2006), measuring bursts of writing, handwriting and spelling knowledge. The results show that the 8-year-old/3rd-year DLD group is out of step with their TD peers: in translation, they produce significantly shorter bursts and, in transcription, they are significantly slower, less automated in their handwriting, and have significantly more spelling errors. On the other hand, within each group, significant differences were observed in the length of the bursts and in the automation when comparing children with preadolescents. It was concluded that the two central elements of writing development were the extension of the burst and the automation of writing, regardless of the condition of the subjects. Also, it was noted that between the 3rd and 6th grade, students with DLD show a similar trajectory to that of schoolchildren with TD.
... We thus collected different information about the kinematics of handwriting: (i) mean speed of the pen during production (in cm per second); (ii) mean pressure; (iii) number of pauses during production (threshold for the pause was set to 20 ms, considering the frequency of the digital tablet, cf. Alamargot and Morin (2015) for detailed explanations); and (iv) mean duration of pauses (in ms). For these four variables, we calculated an average value which concerns the drawing tasks (geometric and cycloid shapes) and the writing tasks (writing of isolated letters and writing of the first name). ...
Introduction
The aim of this manuscript is twofold: first, to investigate the relationship between rhythmic, phonological and graphomotor skills in kindergarten children; and second, to evaluate the possible impact of rhythmic training on the two other skills.
Methods
To that end, we selected a sample of 78 children in Québec. Forty-two children received rhythmic training (experimental group) and 34 arts training (active control group) during the same period (10 weeks). Before and after training, children in both groups were assessed for general skills (forward and backward memory span, vocabulary, non-verbal ability), rhythmic skills (synchronization and discrimination tasks), literacy skills (phonological skills - syllable counting, syllable deletion, rhyme discrimination – and invented spelling skills) and graphomotor skills (legibility of letter writing, quality of copying of geometric shapes).
Results
Results showed correlations between the child’s rhythmic and literacy skills, as well as between rhythm synchronization and pen pressure. In addition, rhythmic training showed improvement in rhythmic abilities, but this did not transfer to literacy or graphomotor development (apart from a significant increase in the duration of pauses in both groups at post-test, with a larger improvement for the rhythm group).
Discussion
These results are discussed in terms of duration and intensity of learning, and they highlight the possible benefits of informal rhythm practices in the classroom.
... A study comparing the effect of a smooth tablet surface on handwriting quality and kinematics in children in grades 9 and 2 found that handwriting on a tablet reduced letter legibility and augmented letter size in both age groups. 33 The smoother surface demanded greater graphomotor control due to the lower proprioceptive feedback. 23 The findings coincided with the conceptual framework of Malay language handwriting. ...
Handwriting development is essential for academic performance, yet the research on the factors contributing to it is scant. This systematic review aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of the factors contributing to handwriting development among preschool children that may benefit public health knowledge, especially among teachers, parents, and therapists. A systematic search was conducted using four databases: PubMed, ERIC, CINAHL, and Google Scholar. During the preliminary search, 565 relevant studies were found. Screening, review selection, and characterization were performed based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The inclusion criteria included preschool children, quantitative, written in English, and published in January 2012 – January 2022. The exclusion criteria were studies involving children with specific diagnoses. A consensus agreement was obtained, and ten studies were eventually selected for the comprehensive review. Executive function, letter knowledge, motor skills, and writing surface were identified. These factors indicated that handwriting was not an independent process, as its acquisition involved numerous components. This systematic review confirmed that executive function, letter knowledge, motor skills, and writing surface influenced handwriting development. More randomized controlled trials should be conducted to provide more conclusive and exhaustive evidence.
... More recently, digital writing boards such as tablets have enabled the analysis of dynamic and kinetic aspects of graphomotor skills. Despite their advantages for diagnostics, the tablet surface differs from that of paper, and children therefore must exert increased effort to control their handwriting movements, presenting additional challenges (Alamargot & Morin, 2015;Gerth et al., 2016). ...
Importance: In educational settings, children are under pressure to finish their work successfully within required time frames. Existing tools for assessing graphomotor skills measure either quality or speed of performance, and the speed–accuracy trade-off (SAT) in such tools has never been investigated.
Objective: We aimed to evaluate a newly developed tool for measuring graphomotor skills, the Zurich Graphomotor Test (ZGT), that assesses both speed and quality of performance. We also explored whether graphomotor tests are affected by the SAT and, if so, the effects it has on graphomotor test results.
Design: Cross-sectional study.
Setting: Educational institutions in Switzerland.
Participants: Children, adolescents, and young adults (N = 547) ages 4–22 yr (50.3% female).
Outcomes and Measures: Graphomotor performance was measured with the ZGT and the Developmental Test of Visual Perception, Second Edition (DVTP–2). Standard deviation scores were used to quantify performance. We combined ZGT speed and quality measurements into a performance score adjusted for age and sex.
Results: ZGT results indicated a marked developmental trend in graphomotor performance; older children were faster than younger children. Girls showed higher overall performance than boys. The pattern of making more mistakes when being faster and making fewer mistakes when being slower was observed for both graphomotor tests, regardless of time pressure, indicating that the SAT affected the children’s scores on both tests.
Conclusions and Relevance: SAT is influential in graphomotor assessment. The ZGT captures this trade-off by combining accuracy and speed measurements into one score that provides a realistic assessment of graphomotor skills.
What This Article Adds: The newly developed ZGT provides occupational therapy practitioners with more precise information on graphomotor skills in children, adolescents, and young adults than currently available tools.
... Il importe alors de départager de façon sommaire les outils d' écriture numériques afin d'identifier ceux qui correspondent le mieux aux caractéristiques et aux besoins de ce type de scripteur. Déjà, certains outils misent sur des modalités d' écriture différentes, entre autres l' écriture dactylographique ainsi que l'écriture manuscrite, et mobilisent une variété de supports et d' outils de transcription (Alamargot et Morin, 2015). D'une part, plusieurs chercheurs se sont intéressés à l' écriture dactylographique et à l'utilisation du clavier auprès de scripteurs débutants. ...
... Although the use of notebooks was indeed a specificity of the handwriting condition, it should be noted that the design of the other training conditions also induced shifts of focus between different regions of space (see Figure 2). Furthermore, previous experiments in which participants had to draw or write on the tablet showed that using the stylus was less natural and disturbed fine motor control (Alamargot & Morin, 2015;Gerth et al., 2016). Another possibility is that the gestural control of graphic production involves attention in a more continuous way than the other methods, so that the occurrence of auditory probes would be more disruptive. ...
Recent studies suggest that letter representations are based on a multimodal network linking the graphic motor programs acquired through handwriting to the visual representations. Moreover, the graphic motor programs are assumed to contribute to letter recognition. This assumption is based on the finding that learning symbols through handwriting leads to better recognition than learning through typing. However, in addition to the type of motor activity engaged, handwriting and typing might also differ in other aspects. Indeed, handwriting requires a more detailed visual analysis of the target symbols, which may account for its learning advantage (Seyll et al., 2020). Moreover, different learning methods might differ in attentional engagement. The present study aimed at measuring and comparing the attentional demands incurred by different learning settings. To this purpose, a dual-task probe paradigm was used: participants had to respond as quickly as possible to auditory probes while learning symbols either through handwriting, typing, or composition-a method requiring detailed visual analysis without graphomotor activity. Reaction times to the probes were used as index of the attentional engagement required by the learning methods. Handwriting led to longer reaction times than typing and composition, suggesting that it requires more attention than both other learning methods. Thus, the recognition advantage of handwriting over typing might be partly attributable to attentional engagement during learning. In addition, the advantage of composition over typing, in the absence of differences in the attentional task, confirms the unique importance of detailed visual analysis in symbol memorization. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... In light of technological developments, computational tools that evaluate handwriting kinetics have recently investigated measuring various handwriting properties (Giammarco et al., 2016;Rosenblum & Livneh-Zirinski, 2008;Rosenblum & Luria, 2016). Several studies used a digitized tablet and a pressuresensitive pen tip to analyze kinematic information, pressure of the pen tip applied on the tablet, and spatial and temporal factors (Alamargot & Morin, 2015;Bisio et al., 2016;Chang & Yu, 2014;Lee et al., 2016). Some studies found differences in writing speed, hand positioning, and applied forces on writing instruments in children with handwriting difficulties, such as children with DCD (Chang & Yu, 2010Rosenblum & Livneh-Zirinski, 2008). ...
The writing process is a complex task involving dexterous manipulation of the writing instrument by the hand digits and biomechanical ergonomic factors that contribute to handwriting efficiency and productivity. We describe a pilot study using an instrumented writing apparatus-a sensor (pen) and a digitized writing surface (tablet)-to measure the pen-grip kinetics (digit forces) and the pen pressure applied to the tablet during a writing task. Eight elementary school students with no handwriting difficulties copied a short story. The mean digit forces on the pen were compared with the mean pen pressure on the tablet at five interval points. Results revealed that the digit forces on the pen were significantly stronger than the pen pressure on the tablet. Results also showed significantly less digit-force variability throughout the writing task than the pen-pressure variability on the writing surface, which significantly lessened towards the end of the writing task. Information on these properties can broaden understanding of the elements that influence nonproficient handwriting in children with dysgraphia. Results also indicate the possible efficacy of a therapeutic tool for handwriting assessment and intervention using objective measurements during writing, warranting future studies with children with and without dysgraphia.
This study aims to review the literature related to the effectiveness of various handwriting interventions in combating handwriting troubles in children aged 4 to 12 years. A thorough search across databases, including PubMed, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and others, was conducted for studies published from 2013 till now. Included studies investigated handwriting interventions by occupational therapists, their effectiveness, and how handwriting impacts the brain and other functional areas. Quality assessment and data extraction adhered to predetermined criteria. Overall, 12 studies met inclusion criteria, covering issues like poor fine motor skills, dysgraphia, and dysfunctional pencil grasp. Examined interventions included pencil grips, pen sizes, sensory feedback, and sensorimotor training. Findings suggest positive effects on legibility, writing speed, fluency, letter form production, alignment, size, spacing, reading, spelling, composition, proficient letter recognition, letter naming, writing fluency, pinch strength, and pencil grasp
Digital tools are an integral part of most writing communities across the globe, enhancing the criticality of gaining a comprehensive understanding of both paper and computer-based writing acquisition and development. The relationships between transcription skills and children’s paper-based writing performance are well documented. Less is known about the relationships between transcription skills and children’s computer-based writing performance. In this study, we examined the unique contributions of transcription skills (i.e., handwriting automaticity, keyboarding automaticity and spelling) in predicting Grade 2 students (N = 544) paper-based and computer-based writing performance (i.e., compositional quality and productivity) after controlling for other student-level factors (i.e., gender, word reading, reading comprehension, and attitudes towards writing) and classroom-level factors (i.e., amount of time teaching handwriting, keyboarding, and spelling). Multilevel modelling showed that, compared to handwriting automaticity, spelling skills accounted for a larger percentage of unique variance in predicting paper-based compositional quality; handwriting automaticity accounted for a larger percentage of unique variance in explaining paper-based compositional productivity. Findings further showed that keyboarding automaticity accounted for a larger percentage of unique variance in students’ computer-based compositional quality and productivity when compared to spelling. Gender and word reading skills were also found to be uniquely related to students’ writing performance across modalities. These findings underscore the need for educators to address and nurture the automaticity of inscription and spelling skills to enhance students' compositional quality and productivity, whether in traditional paperbased or computer-based text composing.
This study sought to examine the influence of transcription skills, evaluated using graphonomic measures, on the proficiency of text generation in students attending primary schools in Spain. A longitudinal design was employed involving 278 Spanish students distributed across three cohorts (cohort 1: 1st-2nd-4th grade; cohort 2: 2nd-3rd-5th grade; and cohort 3: 3rd-4th-6th grade). Two data collection points were used to administer the graphonomic measures, and a composition letter task was conducted at the conclusion of the study. Four multigroup structural equation models were employed, examining the direct pathways from graphonomic measures (i.e., pressure, speed, pauses, and road length) on text generation (i.e., length, fluency, planning, revision, and organization). The models demonstrated a good fit to the data. The findings from the four models, analyzed within the three cohorts, indicated that the significant effect of transcription (i.e., handwriting) on text production was primarily observed in Cohort 1 (early grades), while no significant effects were found in Cohort 2 (intermediate grades). This suggests that the importance of handwriting in text production in a transparent orthography may be more pronounced during the initial stages of writing development when students are acquiring foundational writing skills.
Background: Hand is an important structure used for reaching, holding object predominantly for that grasp and grip strength particularly tripod pinch grip strength is very essential and handwriting is one of the skilled fine motor movements in that deft handwriting which include particular speed with legible writing product is needed for students especially for their higher grades to achieve their best academic performance. Objective: Deft Handwriting is an essential functional skill that impacts on Academic performance and progress from primary school level to higher grades, mostly assumed that grasp and tripod pinch grip affects legibility, speed, yet research studies examining this relationship as correlation are limited. Method: We used Narrative review methodology to map existing research on tripod pinch grip and handwriting quality from the school-age children to higher grades and to identify gaps in the literature. Results: Ten articles met search criteria and were categorized by grasp patterns which mainly include tripod –dynamic tripod grip strength and handwriting performance in speed and readability and grasp kinetics and handwriting performance. Findings suggest an inefficient grasp can lead to decreased handwriting quality i.e legibility and speed. The current literature is inconclusive and several gaps were identified. Conclusion: Tripod pinch grip strength consider as an important since the thump ,index and middle finger its fine motor action , pressure and force exerted on the pencil since static and dynamic tripod pinch commonly used with students if the student lack of this factor finally end in the low academic performance which affect their higher grades, hence Early Analysis at the primary level and early intervention with maintain the higher grades consider as an essential factor reveals from the article.
Even though the computerised assessment of developmental dysgraphia (DD) based on online handwriting processing has increasing popularity, most of the solutions are based on a setup, where a child writes on a paper fixed to a digitizing tablet that is connected to a computer. Although this approach enables the standard way of writing using an inking pen, it is difficult to be administered by children themselves. The main goal of this study is thus to explore, whether the quantitative analysis of online handwriting recorded via a display/screen tablet could sufficiently support the assessment of DD as well. For the purpose of this study, we enrolled 144 children (attending the 3rd and 4th class of a primary school), whose handwriting proficiency was assessed by a special education counsellor, and who assessed themselves by the Handwriting Proficiency Screening Questionnaires for Children (HPSQ–C). Using machine learning models based on a gradient-boosting algorithm, we were able to support the DD diagnosis with up to 83.6% accuracy. The HPSQ–C total score was estimated with a minimum error equal to 10.34%. Children with DD spent significantly higher time in-air, they had a higher number of pen elevations, a bigger height of on-surface strokes, a lower in-air tempo, and a higher variation in the angular velocity. Although this study shows a promising impact of DD assessment via display tablets, it also accents the fact that modelling of subjective scores is challenging and a complex and data-driven quantification of DD manifestations is needed.
Handwriting is a perceptual-motor skill, acquired through repetitive practice. Handwriting production is most often characterized by performance speed (also termed ‘production fluency’, often assessed using text-copying tasks and legibility. Studies have found that handwriting legibility develops quickly during first grade (ages 6–7 years), reaching a plateau by second grade. In some cultures, depending on practice level, by third grade, handwriting becomes automatic, organized, and available as a tool to facilitate the development of ideas. However, handwriting is not a straightforward motor skill and has been linked with reading development. Measures of motor proficiency that correlate with handwriting production in school-aged children show an indirect effect on handwriting via reading-related skills, such as orthography, underscoring reading as a mediator of the association between motor proficiency and handwriting production. Many processes are common to reading and writing. In particular, both are related to the acquisition of a common writing system, comprised of symbols, and share common motor procedures, such as those related to directionality. In this chapter, we focus on the practice required for the acquisition of a written symbol, that is, a letter, and to the association between the ability to acquire single letter writing, handwriting, and reading.
Biscriptuality is the ability to read and write using two scripts. Despite the increasing number of biscripters, this phenomenon remains poorly understood. Here, we focused on investigating graphomotor processing in French-Arabic biscripters. We chose the French and Arabic alphabets because they have comparable visuospatial complexity and linguistic features, but differ dramatically in their graphomotor characteristics. In a first experiment we describe the graphomotor features of the two alphabets and showed that while Arabic and Latin letters are produced with the same velocity and fluency, Arabic letters require more pen lifts, contain more right-to-left strokes and clockwise curves, and take longer to write than Latin letters. These results suggest that Arabic and Latin letters are produced via different motor patterns. In a second experiment we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to ask whether writing the two scripts relies upon partially distinct or fully overlapping neural networks, and whether the elements of the previously described handwriting network are recruited to the same extent by the two scripts. We found that both scripts engaged the so-called "writing network", but that within the network, Arabic letters recruited the left superior parietal lobule (SPL) and the left primary motor cortex (M1) more strongly than Latin letters. Both regions have previously been identified as holding scale-invariant representations of letter trajectories. Arabic and Latin letters also activated distinct regions that do not belong to the writing network. Complementary analyses indicate that the differences observed between scripts at the neural level could be driven by the specific graphomotor features of each script. Overall, our results indicate that particular features of the practiced scripts can lead to different motor organization at both the behavioral and brain levels in biscripters.
Zusammenfassung. Hintergrund: Besondere Schwierigkeiten im Rechtschreiben weisen ohne geeignete Intervention oftmals eine hohe Stabilität und langfristige Persistenz auf. Digitale Trainingsprogramme bieten vielfältige Übungsmöglichkeiten, wobei die Texteingabe in der Regel über Tastatur erfolgt. Studien verweisen auf die positive Rolle der Handschrift beim Orthografieerwerb. Im Rahmen eines vom BMBF geförderten Forschungsprojektes wurde daher ein Tablet-basiertes Rechtschreibtrainingsprogramm mit handschriftlicher Eingabemöglichkeit und direktem Feedback über die Wortkorrektheit entwickelt und angewendet. Methoden: Nach einer erfolgreichen Machbarkeitsstudie 2015/2016 im häuslichen Umfeld (n = 9, zweite bis fünfte Klasse) wurde das weiterentwickelte Programm in der Hauptstudie 2019/2020 mit rechtschreibschwachen Kindern (Prozentrang PR >≤ 16 im DERET) der dritten und vierten Jahrgangsstufe im schulischen sowie häuslichem Kontext eingesetzt (Covid19-bedingter Ortswechsel). Ergebnisse: Bei Kindern mit einer sehr niedrigen Rechtschreibausgangsleistung (Prozentrang >≤ 16) zeigte sich eine signifikante Verbesserung der Rechtschreibfertigkeiten in der Trainings- (n = 14) im Vergleich zur Kontrollgruppe (n = 27) – bei hoher Programmakzeptanz. Diskussion: Die Kombination von digitalem Medium und handschriftlicher Eingabemöglichkeit mit direktem Fehlschreibungs-Feedback ermöglicht rechtschreibschwachen Kindern eine effektive und gut in den schulischen bzw. häuslichen Alltag integrierbare Unterstützung beim Orthografieerwerb.
L’écriture est une des habiletés les plus complexes à acquérir et repose sur plusieurs processus : psychomoteur, cognitif, sensori-moteur, attentionnel. Sa maîtrise se caractérise par la capacité de tracer de manière fluide et précise des formes graphiques lisibles et rationalisées, les lettres. L’objectif de ce travail de thèse est de comprendre comment l’activité attentionnelle permet au scripteur de diriger, coordonner et moduler les différentes composantes de sa pratique. Plus spécifiquement, nous cherchons à saisir comment l’activité sensori-motrice, l’activité cognitive et l’activité attentionnelle se co-déterminent et permettent au scripteur de vivre sa pratique comme une succession de prises de conscience émergeant de son propre engagement. Pour ce faire, nous adoptons une démarche d’investigation en première personne qui nous permet d’étudier le contenu de l’expérience vécue, au sens où celle-ci constitue une dimension nécessaire à la compréhension des processus cognitifs en général, et de l’activité attentionnelle en particulier. Nous avons adopté les outils théoriques et méthodologiques développés par le programme de recherche « cours d’action » pour interroger le scripteur et collecter des descriptions détaillées de son expérience vécue. L’analyse de ces données nous permet de qualifier l’attention au regard de l’organisation et de la signification d’une pratique, la calligraphie, qui n’est pas simplement exécutée et figée mais qui est continuellement reconstruite, adaptée, redéfinie par l’engagement de l’individu dans une situation prolongeant une histoire et une culture qui lui sont propres. La vision longitudinale que nous développons révèle que l’attention est vécue comme la combinaison d’un ensemble de gestes intérieurs qui permettent au scripteur de mettre en rapport de façon spécifique les différentes composantes de son expérience. La dynamique de ces structures est caractérisée par un processus constant d’hybridation et de ramification de l’activité attentionnelle qui débouche sur la constitution de régularités que l’on peut assimiler à des techniques. La maîtrise du tracé calligraphique repose sur l’émergence de techniques attentionnelles correspondant à un type de savoir-faire.
Our purpose in this study was to determine the feasibility of assessing children’s prewriting with a new tablet tool, the Quantitative Assessment of Prewriting Skills (QAPS), while determining the validity of the QAPS for identifying visual motor skill differences. We recruited 10 children who were receiving occupational therapy (OT) services for visual motor deficits from a local OT clinic and 10 age-matched typically developing (TD) children from the local community. The QAPS assesses the accuracy of copying patterns on a tablet that records the child’s finger position on the tablet, and the data are then analyzed for different dimensions of pattern copying. We found a large effect size difference in the QAPS total score between our two participant groups, with the OT group showing poorer performance than TD children; and, among nine assessment dimensions, roundness of a drawn circle showed the largest effect size difference between groups. The QAPS appears to be a promising tool for assessing visual motor skills, and it warrants additional testing in larger participant samples.
Forensic handwriting examinations are often considered important in trials, and especially those related to property issues. There is also increasing demand by courts for the quantification of handwriting examination results. Notably, in forensic science, error rates in forensic handwriting examinations should be carefully quantified in order to ensure their reliability as evidence.
The present study examined error rates in forensic handwriting examinations conducted by both forensic document examiners (FDEs) and non-experts. To this end, four FDEs affiliated with forensic science institutes and a group of 20 laypersons were asked to perform a forensic handwriting examination of Korean characters in various forms (long text, short text, and signature samples) in blind test settings; i.e., specific information about the test was not given. The test was composed of 180 questions.
The results showed that the incorrect answers are much higher in the non-expert group than the expert group though; however, the percentage of “inconclusive opinion” answers was higher in the expert group. It was also found that, in the expert group, error rates could be lowered by allowing a joint examination (or a peer review) to be performed.
Meanwhile, the expert group showed relatively high error rates when dealing with handwriting samples simulated or disguised, rather than those that contained a small number of characters, such as signature samples.
In the non-expert group, financial reward did not contribute to increasing the correct answers (%) of handwriting examination but rather encouraged examiners not to choose “inconclusive opinion” answers. This result indicates that a financial reward may unintentionally affect the examination results.
The major findings of the present study are of significance in that this study is the first attempt to specifically examine error rates in forensic handwriting examinations of Korean characters conducted by both expert and non-expert groups. This study also demonstrated that the exchange of opinions among FDEs affected the resultant error rates and overall examination results. It was also found that financial reward may affect handwriting examination results as well.
Objectives: This study investigated how graphomotor skills and written expression are exhibited in writing development during early childhood. The study also aimed to uncover the types of writing development of young children with similar graphomotor skills and written expression. Finally, the predictors on the latent groups of writing development were identified.Methods: Participants were 101 six-year-old children and their mothers. Children performed writing tasks (including copying the alphabet and writing on a picture card). Mothers completed a questionnaire about their beliefs and guidance styles on writing. Latent class analysis (LCA) was then conducted to examine the types of writing development among young children.Results: First, significant individual differences were seen among beginning writers in graphomotor skills and written expression, suggesting that such individual differences in writing could be empirically demonstrated. Second, the latent classes of writing development among young children were classified into three types: rapid/expressive writers, slow/expressive writers, and developmental writers. Third, predictors of being classified into one of the types were identified as the mother’s belief and guidance styles on emergent writing practices and children’s fine-motor development, preference for literacy activities, and drawing expression.Conclusion: This study expanded the theoretical viewpoint of the overall research in children’s writing development by evaluating both cognitive and sensorimotor traits of early writing. Moreover, this study has practical implications for enhancing young children’s writing ability by considering the latent classes of writing development for young children.
The act of handwriting affected the evolutionary development of humans and still impacts the motor cognition of individuals. However, the ubiquitous use of digital technologies has drastically decreased the number of times we really need to pick a pen up and write on paper. Nonetheless, the positive cognitive impact of handwriting is widely recognized, and a possible way to merge the benefits of handwriting and digital writing is to use suitable tools to write over touchscreens or graphics tablets. In this manuscript, we focus on the possibility of using the hand itself as a writing tool. A novel hand posture named FingerPen is introduced, and can be seen as a grasp performed by the hand on the index finger. A comparison with the most common posture that people tend to assume (i.e. index finger-only exploitation) is carried out by means of a biomechanical model. A conducted user study shows that the FingerPen is appreciated by users and leads to accurate writing traits.
Handwriting difficulties are frequent and impairing. However, the assessment of motor learning is difficult and limits early stage rehabilitation.
Electronic sensors and algorithms can help to measure motor difficulties more easily and objectively. Electronic tablets, for instance, give access to handwriting features that are not usually evaluated in classical assessments. We describe how such digital features (in static, dynamic, pressure, and tilt domains) allow diagnosing dysgraphia and how they evolve during children development. From a finer analysis, three different clusters of dysgraphia emerge. We hope that future longitudinal studies will allow to underline different patterns of development that seemingly require tailored remediation strategies.
However, those digital features are not used in the context of conventional pen and paper therapies. It is possible to engage typically developping children in handwriting ex- ercises by asking them to teach a robot to write. We implemented a long-term case study (20 sessions, 500 minutes in total) observing a child with severe Developmental Coordi- nation Disorder who did not progress anymore with a classic pen and paper approach by enriching this setup with various training activities using real-time feedback loops (on tilt, pressure, dynamic, pauses). We show how this new method tackles the child’s previous behavior avoidances, boosting his motivation, and improving his motor and writing skills.
This thesis demonstrates how new writing digital features allow the implementation of innovative handwriting remediation interventions, which rely on fostering children’s personal characteristics and adaptation skills.
Purpose
Handwriting skills are important for the academic life of children and the lack of visual-motor performance leads to writing problems in children with low vision. This study aims to reveal handwriting kinematics and pencil grip features in children with low vision by means of a novel method.
Materials and methods
18 children with low vision (mean age: 9.83 ± 1.54 years) and 18 children with typical development (mean age: 9.83 ± 1.62 years) were included in the study. Children performed a sentence writing task on a digitizer tablet. During the task, the writing hand of children was photographed to analyze pencil grip patterns.
Results
Children with low vision performed greater stroke size except for the vertical size, slower writing speed, more dysfluent movements, and less pen pressure than children with typical development. However, participants preferred mature pencil grip patterns and had high grip scores independent from the diagnosis.
Conclusions
The findings indicate that children with low vision have difficulties in handwriting in terms of spatial and temporal features. These results would be important for interventions to develop specific programs on writing skills to support their educational life.
Basée sur les théories de la représentation incarnée (Pezzulo, 2011) considérant le processus créatif comme un contrôle moteur prédictif (Dietrich & Haider, 2015), cette recherche a évalué le potentiel de la tablette tactile comme un outil facilitant l’originalité des dessins. Vingt et un adolescents âgés de 13/14 ans ont été invités à produire la maison la plus originale possible sur tablette au doigt et au stylet ainsi que sur papier, et une maison non-originale avec un crayon sur papier. L’originalité des dessins a été notée avec une échelle de cotation comparant les dessins originaux à une maison prototypique, puis en comparant les dessins originaux aux dessins non originaux. Les résultats montrent que les scores d’originalité sont supérieurs pour les dessins réalisés sur tablette (sans différence entre doigt et stylet) plutôt que sur papier. Ces résultats mettent en évidence le rôle joué par le processus de simulation off-line de l’action dans le processus créatif.
An essential part of education is student learning. Good quality education is based mainly on how well student attains knowledge. One way to achieve this is to simplify and provide user-friendly platforms and content that make it as intuitive as possible. This could be challenging, especially for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) courses. Such courses require both practical and technical contacts. More contact periods are needed to keep students abreast with the technical and practical aspects of the growing needs and challenges within the AEC industry. Therefore, this study assessed the effects of social media learning environments on the AEC learning process. Data was collected from the students of AEC-related courses using a structured questionnaire. Warp 7.0 PLS-SEM was used for the analysis of the collated data and model development. The study results indicated that social media learning environments positively relate to the AEC courses learning process. The YouTube learning environment had a significant effect change on the AEC learning process. Similarly, the results further indicate that Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram had moderate effects on the AEC learning process. The study is limited to only students of AEC-related courses in Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi, Nigeria. Moreover, the results of this study could be helpful to other developing countries having issues with the learning process among students of AEC-related courses. The study recommends the adoption of social media learning environments among universities offering AEC courses in Nigeria.
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. Coll. "Sciences du langage : carrefours et points de vue" Louvain-la-neuve : Academia-Bruylant.
In the research area of writing development, an increasing number of researchers suggest that graphomotor skills could be much more important than they appear to be (Christensen, 2009). Few researchers have studied the link between handwriting and teaching practices, despite the fact that some studies indicate its importance (Graham, 2010). The general objective of this study is to explore the relationship between different handwriting styles and the development of writing skills among 715 children in Grade 2. Generally, our results show that the three handwriting styles (manuscript/cursive, manuscript, and cursive) have different effects on writing development (speed, quality, word production, and text production).
Handwriting is a complex activity involving perceptuo-motor, cognitive and linguistic skills, and requires several years of formal training for a correct mastering. In this context, we evaluated two different trainings – using a touchpad or on paper – aiming at improving cursive letters handwriting in 1st-grade children presenting a delay in handwriting acquisition. The training using a tactile interface included demo videos showing the correct sense of production of cursive letters. A comparative analysis of the kinematic characteristics of handwriting before and after training showed a significant improvement of handwritten performances, in particular at the level of writing fluency, in children trained on the touchpad compared to children trained on paper or to non-trained children. These results are discussed in regards to the specificity of contributions of tactile devices.
We sought to identify, the impact of handwriting skills on the efficiency and temporal course of word spelling across Grades 2–9. Eighty-four students, drawn from primary and lower secondary schools, were asked to perform a dictation task to assess their word spelling. They also had to write out the letters of the alphabet, as well as their firstnames and surnames, from memory to assess their handwriting skills. Handwriting kinematics were recorded using a digitizing tablet and a computer running Eye and Pen software. Results revealed that graphomotor skills (as assessed by the name writing task) influenced the success and temporal course of spelling, but only in primary grades, whereas the influence of orthographic knowledge (as assessed by the alphabet task) could still be observed in the lower secondary grades, even if it ceased to influence the temporal course and only affected errors. We discuss what these findings tell us about changes in transcription processes over the course of child development.
EnglishThe present experiment aims at studying the evolution with age of the role of visual information in the production of isolated cursive letters. Children aged 8, 9 and 10 year-old and adults were asked to write different cursive letters (a, o, l, m and p) under three experimental conditions: with a normal vision, under an opaque open box that prevented vision from the hand and the trace, or without any visual information. The partial or complete withdrawal of visual information had a much greater effect on the children�s performances than on those of adults. Only an increase of pressure was observed in adults following the removal of visual information, while children compensated for the absence of visual feedback by increasing movement length, movement velocity, and pressure. By contrast, they maintained movement duration constant throughout the conditions. However, a non monotone development with age of some of these kinematic parameters was revealed. Moreover, the effect of visual information withdrawal on movement parameters differed as a function of the type of letter produced. Globally, these results showed that children relied much more than adults on visual feedback when they wrote, even for the simple production of isolated letters. francaisNotre recherche a pour objectif l�etude du developpement du role des informations visuelles sur la production de lettres cursives. Des enfants de 8, 9, 10 ans et des adultes ont pour tâche d�ecrire differentes lettres cursives (a, o, l, m et p) dans 3 conditions : normale (informations visuelles disponibles), la main placee sous un cache, avec les yeux fermes. L�absence de feedback visuel entraine une modification des caracteristiques des mouvements plus importante chez les enfants que chez les adultes. Seule une augmentation de la pression est observee chez les adultes, alors que les productions des enfants subissent une augmentation de la vitesse, de la longueur des trajectoires formant les lettres, de la fluidite et de la pression. Un developpement non monotone avec l�âge de certains indices est toutefois revele.
Résumé
Parmi les techniques d'analyse en temps réel de la production de texte, la méthode des pauses et débits d'écriture est particulièrement intéressante car elle est objective, non intrusive et offre un recueil continu des paramètres temporels de l'écriture. Toutefois, parce qu'issue des recherches sur la production orale, cette méthode peut s'avérer insuffisante pour rendre compte de traitements spécifiques de l'écrit. Basé sur le recueil synchrone des activités grapho-motrice et oculaire du rédacteur, le dispositif « Eye and pen » offre un nouveau cadre d'exploration des caractéristiques temporelles de la rédaction. Il devient possible, à partir de l'activité oculaire, de préciser la nature des traitements engagés au cours des périodes de pause et d'écriture. Sur le plan expérimental, ce dispositif doit permettre une avancée importante dans l'étude de la composante visuelle impliquée à l'écrit ainsi que de la dynamique des traitements rédactionnels, notamment l'étude des traitements visuels parallèles à l'activité grapho-motrice. Sur le plan méthodologique, le dispositif permet d'ores et déjà l'étude de l'écriture manuscrite dans les environnements multimédia à venir (Tablette-PC, etc.)
Mots clés : production de texte, écriture, dynamique, traitements parallèles, méthodes, pauses, mouvements oculaires, coordination œil-main.
Writing from sources requires the processing of both external (documentary) and internal (long-term memory; LTM) sources of information, which can sometimes interfere with each other. We hypothesised that writers with high working memory (WM) capacity would resolve interference faster than those with low-capacity WM. However, results showed that writing pause duration was shorter for low-capacity writers. This result suggests that when WM resources are limited, access to domain knowledge in LTM is restricted, thereby avoiding interference between the two sources. Results are discussed within the broader context of text composition from sources and individual differences.
The authors used multiple-group structural equation modeling to analyze structural relationships between latent factors underlying separate measures of handwriting, spelling, and composing in Grades 1–6. For compositional fluency, the paths from both handwriting and spelling were significant in the primary grades, but only the path from handwriting was significant in the intermediate grades. For compositional quality, only the path from handwriting was significant at the primary and intermediate grades. The contribution of spelling to compositional quality was indirect through its correlation with handwriting. Handwriting and spelling accounted for a sizable proportion of the variance in compositional fluency (41% to 66%) and compositional quality (25% to 42%). These findings show that the mechanical skills of writing may exert constraints on amount and quality of composing. Theoretical and educational implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Used multiple-group structural equation modeling to analyze structural relationships between latent factors underlying writing-related developmental skills and component writing skills in Grades 1–6. For handwriting, both motor skills and orthographic coding contributed to the model fit, but only the path from orthographic coding was significant at all grade levels. For spelling, only the path from orthographic coding was significant in the primary grades, but both that path and the path from phonological coding were significant in the intermediate grades. For compositional quality, both reading and oral language contributed in the primary grades, but the model was unclear in the intermediate grades because of high covariance between those factors. Theoretical and educational implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study was designed to enhance our understanding of the changing relationship between low- and high-level writing processes
in the course of development. A dual description of writing processes was undertaken, based on (a) the respective time courses
of these processes, as assessed by an analysis of eye and pen movements, and (b) the semantic characteristics of the writers’
scripts. To conduct a more fine-grained description of processing strategies, a “case study” approach was adopted, whereby
a comprehensive range of measures was used to assess processes within five writers with different levels of expertise. The
task was to continue writing a story based on excerpt from a source document (incipit). The main results showed two developmental
patterns linked to expertise: (a) a gradual acceleration in low- and high-level processing (pauses, flow), associated with
(b) changes in the way the previous text was (re)read.
KeywordsWriting-Development-Expertise-Eye movements-Pauses-Author
The capability of reprogramming movement responses following changes in the visual goal has been studied through the double-step paradigm. These studies have shown that: (a) continuous internal feedback-loops correct unconsciously the dynamic errors throughout the movement; (b) proprioceptive information and/or the efference copy have a privileged status among central processes, insuring on-line regulation of the initial motor commands; and (c) generation of the motor program starts after target presentation, and is continuously updated in the direction of the current internal representation of the target, at least until the onset of hand movement. This main corrective process of the initial program appears to be basically independent of visual reafference from the moving hand. However, the agreement with the possibility of a visuomotor loop, based on the comparison of the new updated representation of the target position and on the information from the moving hand, has not determined whether the correcting process is proprioceptive feedback dependent, or whether internal feedback-loops (efferent copies) are responsible for quick corrections of unfolding motor responses. To answer this question, the present experiment investigated the pointing behavior of a deafferented subject, using a double-step paradigm under various conditions of visual feedback and movement initiation. Overall, the present study (a) clearly showed the capacity of the motor system to modify and correct erroneous trajectories on the mere basis of internal feedback-loops and (b) emphasized the crucial role played by the target jump/arm triggering delay and the importance of the eye efferent copy for providing information about the spatial goal of the movement.
A large body of data supports the view that movement plays a crucial role in letter representation and suggests that handwriting contributes to the visual recognition of letters. If so, changing the motor conditions while children are learning to write by using a method based on typing instead of handwriting should affect their subsequent letter recognition performances. In order to test this hypothesis, we trained two groups of 38 children (aged 3-5 years) to copy letters of the alphabet either by hand or by typing them. After three weeks of learning, we ran two recognition tests, one week apart, to compare the letter recognition performances of the two groups. The results showed that in the older children, the handwriting training gave rise to a better letter recognition than the typing training.
We present a new method for studying reading during writing and the relationships between these two activities. The Eye and Pen device makes a synchronous recording of handwriting and eye movements during written composition. It complements existing online methods by providing a fine-grained description of the visual information fixated during pauses as well as during the actual writing act. This device can contribute to the exploration of several research issues, since it can be used to investigate the role of the text produced so far and the documentary sources displayed in the task environment. The study of the engagement of reading during writing should provide important information about the dynamics of writing processes based on visual information.
We sought to deepen our understanding of how the graphomotor component functions in children with dyslexia, compared with typically developing children of the same chronological age. Participants were asked to handwrite the alphabet (Abbott & Berninger, 1993) and their name and surname (Pontart et al., 2013) from memory. Results showed that the children with dyslexia (i) produced less legible letters in both tasks, and (ii) made more frequent graphomotor pauses during alphabet recall. The issue of less efficient visuo-motor integration in dyslexia is discussed.
The present experiment aims at studying the evolution with age of the role of visual information in the production of isolated cursive letters. Children aged 8, 9 and 10 year-old and adults were asked to write different cursive letters (a, o, l, m and p) under three experimental conditions: with a normal vision, under an opaque open box that prevented vision from the hand and the trace, or without any visual information. The partial or complete withdrawal of visual information had a much greater effect on the children's performances than on those of adulte. Only an increase of pressure was observed in adults following the removal of visual information, while children compensated for the absence of visual feedback by increasing movement length, movement velocity, and pressure. By contrast, they maintained movement duration constant throughout the conditions. However, a non monotone development with age of some of these kinematic parameters was revealed, Moreover, the effect of visual information withdrawal on movement parameters differed as a function of the type of letter produced. Globally, these results showed that children relied much more than adults on visual feedback when they wrote, even for the simple production of isolated letters.
The inference of movement control strategies from recorded writing signals is illustrated by presenting the recordings and corresponding absolute velocity profiles of the first attempts in writing an unfamiliar grapheme by an adult subject. A number of kinematic variables derived from these recordings are discussed and used as dependent variables in an experiment. Primary school children from grade two to six wrote the letters of a cursive alphabet in a paced writing task. Movement time, absolute velocity, curvature and writing dysfluency measurements of produced grapheme segments were measured. The changes in these kinematic variables during primary school revealed a discontinuity in writing development. The results show that during the acquisition process a temporary decline in performance measures can be observed as a result of feedback-controlled movement strategies. During the learning of the handwriting skill a feedback-controlled movement strategy is gradually replaced by an open-loop movement strategy.
Handwriting learning
The mastery of fast production of legible graphic symbols appropriately displayed on a sheet of paper is the result of a long learning process, based on linguistic, visual- spatial and perceptual-motor skills. In this paper, we present a review of the steps in the development of writing styles in school-aged children, and we describe several cases of children presenting writing difficulties. The type of difficulties experienced by children vary from case to case and can be attributed to deficits at different processing levels in the production of writing.
Effectiveness of iPad computerized writing instruction was evaluated for 4th-9th graders (n = 35) with diagnosed specific learning disabilities (SLDs) affecting writing: dysgraphia (impaired handwriting), dyslexia (impaired spelling), and oral and written language learning disability (OWL LD) (impaired syntax composing). Each of the 18 two-hour lessons had multiple learning activities aimed at improving subword- (handwriting), word- (spelling), and syntax- (sentence composing) level language skills by engaging all four language systems (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) to create a functional writing system. To evaluate treatment effectiveness, normed measures of handwriting, spelling, and composing were used with the exception of one non-normed alphabet writing task. Results showed that the sample as a whole improved significantly from pretest to posttest in three handwriting measures, four spelling measures, and both written and oral syntax construction measures. All but oral syntax was evaluated with pen and paper tasks, showing that the computer writing instruction transferred to better writing with pen and paper. Performance on learning activities during instruction correlated with writing outcomes; and individual students tended to improve in the impaired skill associated with their diagnosis. Thus, although computers are often used in upper elementary school and middle school in the United States (US) for accommodations (alternatives to pen and paper) for students with persisting SLDs affecting writing, this study shows computers can also be used for Tier 3 instruction to improve the writing skills of students in grades 4-9 with history of persisting writing disabilities.
Notre étude porte sur le contexte des classes où chaque élève possède son ordinateur portable, une des innovations actuelles les plus populaires en éducation. Dans le cadre de cette étude, notre ambition était d’abord de déterminer, selon la perception des élèves et des enseignants, l’apport des TIC dans le développement des compétences à écrire. Cette recherche visait également à identifier les principaux avantages et défis inhérents à l’usage régulier des technologies en salle de classe. Nous avons procédé à une enquête par questionnaire auprès de 2712 élèves (de la 3e à la 11e année), de même qu’auprès de 389 enseignants. En premier lieu, l’analyse des résultats issus des questionnaires montre le rôle primordial des technologies dans la compétence à écrire des élèves : ces derniers rapportent écrire plus vite, plus et mieux – tant sur le plan du fond que de la forme – et, de surcroît, ils ont plus de plaisir à écrire. De façon globale, les données recueillies lors de la recherche ont permis de présenter dix autres principaux avantages liés à l’usage pédagogique et réfléchi des technologies en classe, avec en tête la motivation des élèves.
This monograph presents an experimental analysis of the writing movement. Both children and adult subject were used in the study. The apparatus used in this experiment was designed to measure the speed and the pressure of writing or of a graphic movement. The speed was measured by a method based on the kymograph principle. The writing was done over a small table which rested on the short arm of a lever. The movement of the longer arm was transmitted by means of a tambour and was recorded on a long strip of smoked paper which ran with approximately the same speed as that of the speed strip. Upon this pressure strip there was also a time marker indicating the same intervals as that on the speed strip.
In this study the structure of handwriting was investigated longitudinally, across grades. The scripts of 63 primary school children were evaluated annually, starting in Grade 2. Children were followed for 5 years. An evaluation scale for children's handwriting (the BHK-scale) was used to rate the scripts on 13 characteristics and to measure the speed of writing. Principal component analysis of the BROAD matrix (in which the data collected on the five occasions are arranged side by side) showed that the structure of handwriting characteristics is very stable over these years. Principal component analysis of the LONG matrix (in which the data collected on the five occasions are arranged beneath each other) yielded three clusters of items, which concern (a) fine motor ability of the children, (b) structural performance, and (c) stylistic preference. Sex, grade, and writing speed were related to this structure. In yet another approach a principal component analysis was performed on the within-group correlation matrix of the different grades. In this way the effect of differences in means between grades was removed from the analysis. Three principal components emerged, which, after varimax rotation, correspond to the three clusters noted in the principal component analysis of the LONG matrix.
Writing with the computer provokes and enables pupils to engage with aspects of multimodal design [Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, Routledge, London, 2000]. At the same time the traditional stages of the writing process become much more fluid and integrated [Aust. J. Language Literacy 17(3) (1994) 183]. These consequences of technology are not recognised within the curriculum, the assessment system or current models of teaching the writing process in the UK. Using examples from current classroom research this paper argues that the significance of pupils’ uses of the ‘available designs’ of digital experience [Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, Routledge, London, 2000] is undervalued. Furthermore it suggests that this undervaluing leaves teachers without well-developed pedagogic models of literacy when computers are involved.
Handwriting is the result of a process in which linguistic, psychomotor and biomechanical factors interact with physical maturation, cognitive development and learning. Digital tablets, which record the writing in real time, allow a kinematic analysis of written trace: the implemented algorithms analyze parameters as length, duration and speed of the components (trace between two pen-lifts) and strokes (trace between two minima of curvilinear velocity). The purpose of this work is to fill, at least for Italy, the lack of normative data on typical handwriting processes. This cross-sectional study will present data on 218 right-handed and Italian mother-tongue students, attending classes from 2nd to 8th grade. They performed specific tasks (tests of writing speed; transcription of a sentence accurately vs. speedily) by a digital tablet. The analysis showed many changes of the considered parameters across the classes, as in the horizontal, curvilinear mean and peak velocities of components and strokes, with higher values in the last years of schooling and a parallel decrease in the number of strokes/letter (improvement of automation). In conclusion, some of these parameters are useful for studying development and learning of writing and their values can be used as references to evaluate samples with different characteristics.
Despite an extensive body of research on the control of planar pen movements in handwriting, relatively little attention has been directed towards the control of pen pressure. The introduction to this paper uses a computer simulation to demonstrate that the effects of static and sliding friction may be subtle but can significantly alter the dynamics of pen control. These simulations lead to hypothesis on human strategies which may reduce the disruptive effects of friction. Specifically, it is proposed that subtle modulations in the general level of normal force are necessary if the relative pen dynamics are to remain stable across changes in pen speed. Empirical data was collected from 11 adult subjects writing repititions of a series of words in different script sizes, at different speeds and on different surfaces. Axial pen pressure was recorded in synchrony with x, y position information. The resulting pressure records are used to explore some hypotheses of previous researchers on pressure variability, as well as the hypotheses developed from the computer simulations. Finally a theoretical model is presented of a ‘perceptual instrument’ that may serve to explain the sensitivity apparent amongst competent writers in the modulation of pen pressure.
Two views on the nature of motor programs are contrasted, one holding that motor programs are discrete and integrated sets of movement goals, of which only the total size may be scaled up or down. The alternative view is a more continuous appreciation of the motor program as a generalized but segmented sequence of goal trajectories, each of which is more or less open to the influence of local spatial constraints. For a task like handwriting the second view implies that writers, when they adapt their current writing size to the space left at the end of a writing line, upstrokes may be scaled up or down differently from downstrokes and, secondly, adaptations in the horizontal dimension may be disconnected from adaptations in the vertical dimension of script. Twelve right-handed subjects wrote nonsense task words (each of a length of nine letters and composed of letters l, h, e, n, and m). Pen-tip movements were recorded by means of a digitizer tablet and real-time visual feedback of the writing trace was presented on a computer display. When their writing had proceeded halfway the task word, the computer program presented the target writing space for that word which was either normal, shortened or extended (both by 7%). Realized trajectory length of up and down strokes, horizontal and vertical displacements and stroke durations were analyzed. Significant size adaptations occurred immediately following the disclosing of the spatial constraint. These size adaptations were more of a continuous than of a discrete nature. During a transition stage of three letters, writing size was gradually adapted to the local constraint and upstrokes were affected earlier than downstrokes. Also, adaptations of the horizontal progression were earlier and more pronounced than changes of vertical displacements. After the transition, the ratio of horizontal and vertical displacement returned to its original value. The results support the more dynamically and continuous view on motor programs.
This experiment aimed at studying the benefits of different types of training (visual, motor, or visual-motor), in comparison to a control group, on 5-year-olds' performance in a task of writing cursive letters. The visual-motor training was shown to be the most effective training. The efficacy of visual training was clear at the letter quality level, and the impact of the motor training was shown at the movement fluency level. We assume that the visual training better contributes to learning the shape of the letter trajectory, while the motor training better contributes to improve handwriting movement execution.
The study assessed the impact of spatial and temporal constraints on handwriting movements in young children. One hundred children of 5–7 years of age of both genders were given the task of copying isolated cursive letters under four conditions: normal, with temporal, spatial, or spatio-temporal constraints. The results showed that imposing spatio-temporal constraints on handwriting movements affected 5-year-olds' performance, at least for a subset of letters (those with the simplest shapes). The constraints probably enabled young children to free themselves from the models and helped them to better program their movements.
Two studies were carried out in order to better understand the role of perceptual and visuo-motor skills in handwriting. Two training programs, visual-haptic (VH) and visual (V), were compared which differed in the way children explored the letters. The results revealed that improvements of VH training on letter recognition and handwriting quality were higher than improvements after V training. We suppose that VH training was more efficient because it improved both perceptual and visuo-motor skills. In the second experiment, in order to investigate the part of each component, we assessed the link between visuo-motor skills, perceptual skills and handwriting. The results showed that only the visuo-motor tasks predict handwriting copying performance. These results are discussed in relation to the respective roles of the perceptual and visuo-motor skills on letter shape learning and handwriting movement execution.
Development of fine motor functions, especially drawing and handwriting, are crucial for performance in school, autonomy in everyday life and the general human development. A variety of neurological and psychiatric conditions in childhood and adolescence stunt the normal development of fine motor skills. We sought to define the normal development of the kinematic parameters of fine motor movement and determine the influence of gender, laterality of handedness and extracurricular training on fine motor skills.
One hundred and eighty‐seven children and adolescents (mean age: 11.6 years (±S.D.: 3.58), range: 6–18 years) were included in the study. Participants performed drawing and handwriting tasks on a digitizing graphic tablet. Movement and pressure data were transferred to a computer using a sensor‐equipped pen and post‐processed using CSWIN. Movements were segmented into strokes and several kinematic parameters were calculated. The kinematic parameters that were analyzed represented speed (frequency and stroke peak velocity), automation (number of direction changes of velocity per stroke), variability (variation coefficient of stroke peak velocity) and pressure.
Progression of kinematic parameters for each movement domain of the handwriting and circle drawing tasks correlated significantly with age (Pearson's correlation, p < 0.003). Speed, automation and pressure increased with age, whereas variability decreased. Nonlinear regressions revealed maturation of hand movements at a certain age. Age of completed maturation depended on the task complexity (drawing circles vs. handwriting) and kinematic parameters. In the speed and automation domains, handwriting movements finish maturing later than circle drawing. Male subjects drew circles at significantly higher speeds than female subjects. Fine motor practice and laterality of handedness did not influence kinematic parameters. A repeated measure ANOVA confirmed the significant interdependency between age and complexity level for speed and automation ( p < 0.001).
The digitizing graphic tablet is an extremely valuable tool in determining the normal development of hand movement skills of children and adolescents by measuring relevant daily tasks like handwriting and drawing. In our study, we showed that future analyses of impaired movement in children and adolescents need to take age and gender into consideration. Furthermore, differences were observed in the maturation of different task complexities, the complex fine motor function reaching maturity later than basic and repetitive movement patterns.
The general observation that handwriting is not noticeably impaired by the withdrawal of vision can be explained in two ways. One might argue that vision is not needed during the act of writing. Micro-analyses should then reveal that spatial as well as temporal writing features are identical in conditions of vision and no vision. Alternatively, it is possible that vision is needed during the act of writing, but that without vision possible errors and inaccuracies have to be prevented. Assuming that the latter would place an extra demand on movement control, this should be revealed by an increase in processing time. We have found evidence for the latter view in the present study in which 12 subjects wrote a nonsense letter sequence with and without vision. Close examination showed that writing shapes remained equally invariant under both vision conditions, suggesting that spatial control was unaffected by withdrawing vision. The prediction that invariance of shapes is preserved in the absence of vision at the expense of processing time increments was confirmed. The increase of reaction time observed when visual guidance was withdrawn suggests that more processing time was needed prior to the movement start. Moreover, the RT increment was larger when a short writing duration was instructed. The present findings will be discussed in light of the remarkable flexibility of writing as a motor skill in which writers appear to be able to employ specific strategies to preserve shape in the absence of visual guidance.
In earlier studies the involvement of vision in handwriting was suggested by the finding that the production of a letter sequence in a condition without vision took more time and resulted in larger letter trajectories. The present study raises the question whether vision has an impact on the production of the individual up- and downstrokes constituting the letters. More specifically, the aim is to examine whether vision is employed either during the completion of a movement, or concurrent with the entire course of a stroke movement. Adult writers produced the letter sequence lelele under a no-vision and a vision condition, the latter serving as a base-line condition. It was found that movement time and trajectory size of acceleration and deceleration phases of a stroke movement increased under no vision, the magnitude of which depended on letter type. Letter e, with a smaller size and more frequently used in Dutch writing than letter l, was less affected by the no-vision condition. Although, close examination of downstrokes produced in later letter positions of the sequence revealed that the acceleration as compared to the deceleration phase took proportionally less time, the general finding was that increments in time and size proved to be equally distributed across entire stroke movements.