Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Development of handwriting'

There are increasing numbers of preterm children of very low and extremely low birth weights surviving due to advances in neonatal care. The majority of these children attend mainstream classrooms and perform in the low average range on cognitive measures compared to peers. However, outcome studies document a range of subtle, clinically important impairments in their motor, visual-motor and visual perceptual performance compared to peers. The impact of these impairments on a complex, occupational task such as handwriting performance has never been investigated in the preterm population using an objective measure, except through parent or teacher questionnaires.
The primary objective of this doctoral thesis was to characterize and compare handwriting performance in preterm children (birth weight of ≤1250 grams) attending Grade One, to typically developing peers matched by age, gender and classroom. Standardized outcome measures were used to examine handwriting performance, sensorimotor component skills and psychosocial factors. Preterm survivors demonstrated significantly lower handwriting legibility and slower speed scores compared to matched peers. Visual perception and motor accuracy were identified as predictors of legibility; and in-hand manipulation (translation) and finger identification were associated with handwriting speed in preterm children. However, in typically developing children, legibility was associated with upper extremity steadiness, visual motor control and in-hand manipulation (rotation); and speed was associated with in-hand manipulation (translation) and upper limb speed and dexterity. These findings have important implications for clinical practice in guiding both evaluation approaches and intervention strategies. Clearly, preterm survivors are at high risk for developing handwriting difficulties at school-age. Increasing awareness may help with early identification and intervention with a view towards minimizing the negative effects on self-esteem and academic achievement often documented in children with handwriting difficulty.

This longitudinal study investigates the factors at home and school that influence children's attainment and progress in writing at Key Stage 1. Sixty children between the ages of four and seven years in four Reading primaiy schools were tracked and data was collected in the term before they started school, at school entry, on a termly basis once in school and at the end of Key Stage 1. Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, observation schedules, checklists and standardised assessments were used. Associations between measures and continuity over time were assessed using multiple regression analysis. Pre-school independent variables that were found to be significantly associated with writing proficiency at school entry included mother's educational level, family size, parental assessment of writing and a measure of home writing. Child characteristics, skills and competencies were measured at school entry and those found to be significantly associated with writing at outcome included season of birth, WPPSI-R vocabulary score, pre-reading skills and proficiency in writing their own name. The only pre-school variable that maintained its significant relationship to writing at outcome was home writing. Teacher assessments of pupil attitudes to writing were consistently found to be significantly associated with writing at outcome. Data from the termly writing samples indicated that only the handwriting assessment predicted general writing ability at seven years of age. Eight pupils were observed writing at two points in time and the records are discussed in terms of processes and products. Issues such as quality and quantity of writing generated are considered in relation to the development of component skills (e.g. handwriting, spelling, vocabulary), within the context of the curriculum and role of the teacher. The results confirm the complexity of learning to write for children at Key Stage I and developmental considerations are discussed in relation to policy and practice issues.

Artificial Handwriting Recognition (AHR) systems are currently developed in a largely ad hoc fashion. The central premise of this work is the need to return to first principles and identify an underlying rationale for the representations used in handwriting recognition. An interdisciplinary approach is advocated that combines the perspectives of cognitive science and pattern recognition engineering. Existing surveys of handwriting recognition are reviewed and an information-space analogy is presented to model how features encode evidence. Handwriting recognition is treated as an example of a simple visual task that uses a limited set of our visual abilities based on the observations that i) biological systems provide an example of a successful handwriting recognition system, and ii) vision is a prerequisite of recognition. A set of six feature types for which there is empirical evidence of their detection in early visual rocessing is identified and a layered framework for handwriting recognition is proposed that unifies the perspectives of cognitive science and engineering. The outer layers of the framework relate to the capture of raw sensory data and feature extraction. The inner layers concern the derivation and comparison of structural descriptions of handwriting. The implementation of an online AHR system developed in the context of the framework is reported. The implementation uses a fuzzy graph-based approach is used to represent structural descriptions of characters. Simple directed graphs for characters are compared by searching for subgraph isomorphisms between input characters and know prototypes. Trials are reported for a test set of 1000 digits drawn from 100 different subjects using a KNearest Neighbour approach (KNN) approach to classification. For K=3, the mean recognition accuracy is 68.3% and for K=5 it is 70.7%. Linear features were found to be the most significant. The work concludes that the current understanding of visual cognition is incomplete but does provide a basis for the development of artificial handwriting recognition systems although their performance is currently less than that of existing engineered systems.

Elementary students who demonstrate accuracy and speed in handwriting are better equipped to generate higher quality, longer composition. Unfortunately, students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to encounter significant difficulties with legibility, size, and speed of handwriting. The present study used a single-subject, multiple-baseline design across participants to examine the effects of CASL (Center for Advancing Student Learning) Handwriting intervention on handwriting accuracy and speed for three early elementary students with ASD. The dependent variable was correct letter points (CLP) and error letter points (ELP) as measured on a 90-s sentence copy probe. The intervention was delivered over eighteen, 20-min sessions which included alphabetic knowledge activities, explicit instruction in handwriting, and timed practice with goal-setting, praise, performance feedback, and self-graphing. After starting intervention, all students showed immediate increases in overall handwriting accuracy. Throughout intervention, handwriting accuracy continued to improve for each student, and handwriting speed increased for 2 of 3 students. However, the observed gains fell short of high levels of accuracy needed to achieve fluency as a learning outcome. Results extend prior research on handwriting intervention for students with ASD, the CASL Handwriting Program, behavioral fluency theory, the Instructional Hierarchy, explicit instruction, and timed practice.

Objective: This study investigated the prevalence of cross lateral preference (CLP) amongst young children. This study also explored whether the use of educational technology and the use of specific software can assist young children in the development of early letter and number formation, especially those identified as displaying CLP. Method: The study included fifty children aged 4-5 years, divided into two groups; the experimental group and the control group. The lateral preferences of hand, foot, eye and ear of both groups were assessed through the use of individual performance based assessments. The experimental group had daily access to the software on an interactive table for a period of eight weeks whilst the control group had no access to the software. Results: The prevalence of CLP amongst fifty 4-5 year olds was found to be 100% when all four indices of hand, foot, eye and ear were considered. The results from the univariate ANOVA analysis showed a statistically significant result for the experimental group only in respect of letter formation. No statistical evidence was found to suggest a relationship exists between attainment and CLP. Conclusions: The prevalence of CLP amongst fifty 4-5 year olds is much higher than previously reported, especially when the four indices of hand, foot, eye and ear are considered. The use of the specific software on the interactive table was successful in assisting young children with early letter formation.

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Some skills identified as predictive of the good performance in reading and writing are impaired in children with phonological disorders. Then, this work aims to analyze and compare the performance in reading and writing among children with phonological disorders and children with typical phonological development. Besides, it aims to characterize and differentiate the reading and the writing of both groups of children and verify how the repair strategies, presented in the speech of children with phonological disorders, are reproduced in the mentioned abilities. The data collection was carried out from assessments of reading and writing of isolated words, assessment of reading comprehension and text production. The sample consisted of fifty children, five with phonological disorders - study group - and forty five with typical phonological development - control group. It was applied a descriptive and an inferential statistics to the data. So, it observed a statistically significant difference in relation to the average of the percentage of success in reading and writing of isolated words when comparing the groups. The kind of errors made in reading and writing by the two groups were similar, however, the average of occurrence of these errors was higher in the group of children with phonological disorders, with a statistically significant difference for some errors. In reading comprehension, it was found no difference between the groups, but, in relation to the textual production differences were verified. Finally, for the repair strategies presented in the speech of children with phonological disorders, it was found that in reading the majority was reproduced with a different strategy from that one used in speech, while a minority was produced correctly. However, in terms of writing, the majority was reproduced correctly. Therefore, we conclude that children with phonological disorder showed lower performance in reading and writing of isolated words, as well as in textual production, when compared to children with typical phonological development. It was also noticed some similarities between the groups regarding the kinds of errors in reading and writing of words, however, the average of errors occurrence errors was higher in the group of children with phonological disorders. And, for the repair strategies presented in the speech of children with phonological disorders, it was found that they are not always reproduced in reading and writing.
Algumas habilidades identificadas como preditivas do bom desempenho em leitura e escrita podem encontrar-se prejudicadas nas crianças que apresentam desvio fonológico. Dessa forma, este trabalho objetiva analisar e comparar o desempenho em leitura e escrita entre crianças com desvio fonológico e crianças com desenvolvimento fonológico típico. Além disso, busca caracterizar e diferenciar a leitura e a escrita dos dois grupos de crianças e verificar como as estratégias de reparo, presentes na fala das crianças com desvio fonológico, são reproduzidas nas habilidades em questão. O levantamento de dados foi realizado a partir de avaliação da leitura e escrita de palavras isoladas, de avaliação da compreensão de texto e de produção textual. Para isso, fizeram parte da amostra 50 crianças frequentando o segundo ano do ensino fundamental, sendo cinco com desvio fonológico grupo estudo e 45 com desenvolvimento fonológico típico grupo controle. Aos dados aplicou-se estatística descritiva e inferencial. Assim, pode-se constatar diferença estatisticamente significante em relação à média do percentual de acertos na leitura e escrita de palavras isoladas quando comparados os grupos. Os tipos de erros cometidos na leitura e na escrita pelos dois grupos foram semelhantes, contudo, a média de ocorrência desses foi maior no grupo de crianças com desvio fonológico, com diferença estatisticamente significante para alguns erros. Na compreensão da leitura de texto, não houve diferença entre os grupos, já na produção textual houve diferença, sendo que as crianças com desenvolvimento fonológico típico apresentaram melhor desempenho que as crianças com desvio fonológico. Por fim, em relação às estratégias de reparo presentes na fala das crianças com desvio fonológico, verificou-se que na leitura a maioria foi reproduzida com uma estratégia diferente da realizada na fala, enquanto que a minoria foi produzida corretamente. Já na escrita, a maioria foi reproduzida corretamente. Conclui-se, então, que as crianças com desvio fonológico apresentaram desempenho inferior na leitura e escrita de palavras isoladas, assim como na produção textual, quando comparadas às crianças com desenvolvimento fonológico típico. Observaram-se, ainda, certas semelhanças entre os grupos quanto aos tipos de erros cometidos na leitura e escrita de palavras, porém, a média de ocorrência dos erros foi maior no grupo de crianças com desvio fonológico. E, quanto às estratégias de reparo presentes na fala das crianças com desvio fonológico, verificou-se que nem sempre elas são reproduzidas na leitura e na escrita.

This research set out to examine the changes in handwriting in children from the earliest learning experiences at about five years old through to the time that they leave education in late adolescence. The aims were to explore the changes that occur in handwriting, both of features used and their variability, to establish when they occur and to determine what the consequences are for the process of individualisation. A coding scheme was devised that was used to establish detailed changes in feature use of particular letters in the handwriting of children. The scheme was tested and then revised to give a practical tool to use in the examination of large numbers of handwriting samples in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies that followed. In the cross-sectional study three handwriting tasks (normal composition, neat copying and fast copying) were completed by 144 participants from six different age groups. Firstly, the results showed that, there are underlying higher order dimensions of handwriting that emerge from some of the individual features. Secondly, across all tasks, the variability of handwriting increased from the younger children and peaked at about 10-11 years old and then decreased. Within this general trend, there was also evidence that writing faster than normal led to increased variability in letter formation for younger children, but reduced variability for older children. Thirdly, some individualisation was present even in the youngest children, but the extent of this increased such that by late adolescence it was nearly almost complete. In the longitudinal study handwriting samples from a smaller number of children were obtained over three years. The findings were similar to those obtained in the cross-sectional study. The implications of this for handwriting acquisition in particular and skill acquisition in general are considered. The research concludes that there is potential to extend the approach used in this research to clarify higher order dimensions of handwriting production, that the variability of handwriting is a good measure for determining handwriting development in children, that this variability increases up to the age of 10-11, and then declines, and that the handwriting of each child progressively develops its own style away from that of his or her peers.

Syftet med denna studie är att öka kunskapen om pojkars skrivutveckling mellan årskurserna ett och tre genom att undersöka vad som utmärker texterna och vilken utveckling som sker då de skrivs analogt respektive digitalt. Studien har gjorts med hjälp av både kvantitativa och kvalitativa elevtextanalyser. Tjugo elevtexter har analyserats. Resultatet visar att texterna utvecklas både i textlängd, stavning och disposition särskilt då eleverna skriver med hjälp av digitala skrivverktyg. En jämförelse mellan de två olika kategorierna analoga och digitala texter visar att utvecklingen är större då pojkar skriver med digitala skrivverktyg, vilket tyder på att de gynnas mer av att skriva digitalt än analogt. Resultatet har analyserats utifrån den sociokulturella teorin.
The aim of this study is to increase the knowledge about boys’ writing development in grades one to three by examining what characterizes the texts and what developmental differences there are between handwritten and digitally written texts. Quantitative and qualitative text analyzes was done on twenty student texts. The results shows that the texts develop in length, spelling and disposition particularly when they are written with digital writing tools. A comparison between the handwritten and the digitally written texts   show that the development is greater when boys write with digital writing tools, which indicates that boys benefit more from writing with digital tools. The result has been analyzed with a sociocultural theory.

Background. Developmental coordination disorder (DCD), is the term used to refer to children who present with motor coordination difficulties, unexplained by a general-medical condition, intellectual disability or known neurological impairment. Difficulties with handwriting are often included in descriptions of DCD, including that provided in DSM-5 (APA, 2013). However, surprisingly few studies have examined handwriting in DCD in a systematic way. Those that are available, have been conducted outside of the UK, in alphabets other than the Latin based alphabet. In order to gain a better understanding of the nature of 'slowness' so commonly reported in children with DCD, this thesis aimed to examine the handwriting of children with DCD in detail by considering the handwriting product, the process, the child's perspective, the teacher's perspective and some popular clinical measures including strength, visual perception and force variability. Compositional quality was also evaluated to examine the impact of poor handwriting on the wider task of writing. Method. Twenty-eight 8-14 year-old children with a diagnosis of DCD participated in the study, with 28 typically developing age and gender matched controls. Participants completed the four handwriting tasks from the Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting (DASH) and wrote their own name; all on a digitising writing tablet. The number of words written, speed of pen movements and the time spent pausing during the tasks were calculated. Participants were also assessed in spelling, reading, receptive vocabulary, visual perception, visual motor integration, grip strength and the quality of their composition. Results. The findings confirmed what many professionals report, that children with DCD produce less text than their peers. However, this was not due to slow movement execution, but rather a higher percentage of time spent pausing, in particular, pauses over 10 seconds. The location of the pauses within words indicated a lack of automaticity in the handwriting of children with DCD. The DCD group scored below their peers on legibility, grip strength, measures of visual perception and had poorer compositional quality. Individual data highlighted heterogeneous performance profiles in children with DCD and there was little agreement/no significant association between teacher and therapist's measures of handwriting. Conclusions. A new model incorporating handwriting within the broader context of writing was proposed as a lens through which therapists can consider handwriting in children with DCD. The model incorporates the findings from this thesis and discusses avenues for future research in this area.

Introdução: Crianças com distúrbio específico de linguagem (DEL) são propensas a apresentar dificuldade no processo de alfabetização devido às múltiplas alterações de linguagem que possuem. Este estudo comparou e caracterizou o desempenho de crianças com DEL e em desenvolvimento típico de linguagem em atividades de aliteração, rima, memória de curto prazo fonológica, ditado de palavras e de pseudopalavras. A principal hipótese do estudo era de que o grupo DEL apresentaria desempenho inferior do que o grupo em desenvolvimento típico em todas as habilidades estudadas. Método: Participaram do estudo 12 crianças com DEL (GP) e 48 em desenvolvimento típico (GC) com idade entre 7 anos e 9 anos e 11 meses. Todos os sujeitos cursavam o 2º ou 3º ano do ensino fundamental I e apresentavam audição e rendimento intelectual não-verbal preservados. Para a seleção dos grupos foram utilizadas medidas de vocabulário receptivo, fonologia e nível socioeconômico. Já as medidas experimentais avaliadas foram testes padronizados de aliteração, rima, memória de curto prazo fonológica e a aplicação de um ditado de palavras e de pseudopalavras elaborados para esta pesquisa. Resultados: ambos os grupos apresentaram pior desempenho em tarefas de rima do que de aliteração e o GP apresentou desempenho inferior em ambas as tarefas quando comparado ao GC. A análise dos distratores nas atividades de aliteração e rima apontou que em tarefas de aliteração, o GP cometeu mais erros de tipologia semântico enquanto na prova de rima foram mais erros de tipologia fonológico. O GP obteve desempenho inferior ao GC nas avaliações da memória de curto prazo fonológica, ditado de palavras e de pseudopalavras. O GP evidenciou maior dificuldade no ditado de pseudopalavras no que no de palavras e o GC não apresentou diferença significativa no desempenho dos ditados. No ditado de palavras, o GP cometeu mais erros na palavra toda enquanto no ditado de pseudopalavras ocorreram mais erros na palavra toda e na sílaba final. Na comparação do desempenho dos grupos de acordo com a escolaridade, notou-se que os sujeitos do GC do 2º e 3º ano não evidenciaram diferença significativa em seu desempenho nas tarefas, enquanto os sujeitos do GP do 3º ano apresentaram melhor desempenho do que os do 2º ano em todas as medidas experimentais, com exceção da memória de curto prazo fonológica. Conclusões: o GP apresentou dificuldade em tarefas de processamento fonológico e de escrita que foram realizadas com relativa facilidade pelo GC. Os sujeitos com DEL evidenciaram uma análise mais global dos estímulos apresentados nas tarefas de consciência fonológica, o que os fez desprezar aspectos segmentais importantes. A dificuldade em abordar as informações de modo analítico, somado a alterações linguísticas e do processamento fonológico, levou o GP a apresentar maior taxa de erros nas tarefas de ditado. Apesar das alterações apontadas, os sujeitos do GP do 3º ano obtiveram melhor desempenho do que os do 2º ano em todas as habilidades com exceção da memória de curto prazo fonológica, que é sua marca clínica. Estes dados reforçam a necessidade do diagnóstico e intervenção precoces para esta população, onde as habilidades abordadas neste estudo devem ser incluídas no processo terapêutico
Introduction: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) are likely to experience difficulty in literacy development due to several language alterations they have. This study compared and characterized the performance of children with SLI to ones with typical language development in activities involving alliteration, rhyme, phonological short-term memory, and spelling of words and pseudowords. Our main hypothesis was that the group with SLI would have an inferior performance than the typical language development one in all the capacities studied. Methods: Participants were 12 children with SLI (study group - SG) and 48 in typical language development (control group - CG) aged 7-to-9 years. All children were on 2nd or 3rd grade and presented hearing thresholds within normal limits and appropriate nonverbal intellectual performance. In order to characterize the children, we assessed receptive vocabulary, phonology and socioeconomic status. The experimental assessment was composed by alliteration and rhyme tests, short-term memory test and by a spelling of words and pseudowords. Results: Both groups presented an inferior performance in rhyme activities compared to the alliteration, and the SG had an inferior performance in both tasks in comparison to CG. The analysis of distractors in alliteration and rhyme activities pointed out that in alliteration tests, SG made more errors of the semantics typology; whereas in rhyme tests, the errors regarded to phonological typology. SG had an inferior performance compared to CG in phonological short-term memory evaluation, as well as word and pseudoword spelling. SG evinced more difficulty in pseudoword spelling than in word spelling, and CG did not present any significant difference in spelling performance. Concerning word spelling, SG made more mistakes in entire words, whereas the pseudoword spelling mistakes were more frequent in the entire word and final syllable. Comparing the performance of the groups regarding schooling, it was noticed individuals from CG at 2nd and 3rd grade did not evince significant difference in their performance, whilst 3rd graders from SG presented better performance than 2nd graders in all experimental measures, except in phonological short-term memory. Conclusion: SG presented more difficulty in phonological processing and writing tasks which were done slightly easily by CG. SLI individuals attested a more global analysis of the stimuli presented in phonological awareness tasks, what made them despise relevant segmental aspects. The difficulty in approaching information analytically, in addiction to linguistic and phonological processing alterations resulted in higher mistake rates in spelling tasks by SG individuals. In spite of the mentioned alterations, SG 3rd graders obtained better performance than 2nd graders in all abilities except in phonological short-term memory, which is its clinical marker. These data reinforces the necessity of diagnosis and early intervention in this population, where the abilities observed by this study should be included in the therapeutic process

Handwriting difficulties are well documented in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Whether, and how, these difficulties affect the content of the work such children produce is less clear. The aim of this thesis was to explore the relationship between poor handwriting and the quality of written expression in these children, using different methodologies. Four studies are reported. In the first, a group of 10-11 year-old children whose teachers regarded their writing difficulties as "unexpected" were compared with matched controls. Objective measurement showed that they had at least average intelligence, could read and spell adequately and did not differ from the control group in their ability to produce stories orally. Consequently, the poor hand- and story writing revealed in the study could not be explained in terms of poor intellect or general language or literacy problems. However, all met criteria for the diagnosis of DCD. The second study confirmed that the physical act of handwriting supported the ability to compose a story in typically developing children but conferred no such advantage if handwriting and movement difficulties were present. When children from Study 1 were followed up after five years, those whose handwriting had not improved continued to have difficulty with written composition. Having shown that poor handwriting can affect the conceptual side of writing, the final study set out to determine which particular aspects of handwriting difficulty might constrain the cognitive resources available for composition. To this end, the effect of increasing motor and orthographic complexity on the spatial, temporal and force aspects of handwriting was explored in a series of writing tasks varying in content, length and difficulty. Consistent with the capacity theory tested, results showed that variations in motor and orthographic complexity affected writing performance in all children, but those with DCD and poor handwriting were affected more.

Resumo: A escrita é uma forma de comunicação importante que se desenvolve com a idade e com a escolarização. Algumas crianças apresentam dificuldade em desenvolver uma escrita proficiente. Do ponto de vista do controle motor, uma escrita não proficiente pode estar vinculada à dificuldade da criança ativar adequadamente as sinergias motoras que dão suporte a esta habilidade. Portanto, estimular as sinergias motoras dos dedos pode proporcionar melhora na cinética e cinemática da escrita e, conseqüentemente, na qualidade da escrita. O objetivo do presente trabalho foi verificar os efeitos de um programa de intervenção, para crianças com dificuldades na escrita, composto por atividades manipulativas e pré-caligráficas que estimularam as sinergias motoras dos dedos por meio da variação da produção de força dos dedos. Trinta e duas crianças foram indicadas por suas professoras de classe para participarem do estudo. Dezesseis crianças, de 7 a 12 anos de idade, com baixa qualidade na escrita, formaram o Grupo Experimental (GE), e outras 16 crianças com boa qualidade na escrita, e com idade, gênero e preferência manual correspondentes ao GE, formaram o Grupo Controle (GC). O desempenho motor de todos os participantes foi avaliado pelo Movement Assessment Battery for Children, M-ABC (HENDERSON; SUDGEN, 1992). Todos os participantes tiveram a qualidade da escrita avaliada pelo Minnesota Handwriting Assessment (REISMAN, 1999) adaptado à língua portuguesa. Além disso, todos os participantes foram testados na produção gráfica e escrita sobre uma mesa digitalizadora (Wacom, Intuos2). Ambos, o Minnesota Handwriting Assessment adaptado e a produção gráfica e escrita sobre uma mesa digitalizadora foram administrados antes (pré-teste) e após (pós-teste) o programa de intervenção. Somente o GE foi submetido ao programa de intervenção. O programa de intervenção... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo)
Abstract: Handwriting is an essential manner of human communication which develops with the process of aging and schooling. Some children present difficulties in developing a proficient handwriting. From the motor control perspective, a non-proficient handwriting may be associated with the difficulty to appropriately activate specific motor synergies. Thus, the stimulation of motor synergies of the fingers can improve the kinetic, and kinematic parameters of handwriting, and consequently the quality of the product of handwriting. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of an intervention program involving manipulative and pre-calligraphic activities. The intervention activities were based on variation in the force production of the fingers for children with handwriting difficulties. A total of 32 children aged between 7 and 12 years were selected to participate in the study by the classroom teachers. The Experimental Group (EG) was composed by 16 children displaying poor quality of handwriting, and other 16 children matched by age, gender and handedness showing high quality of handwriting composed the Control Group (CG). The motor performance of the participants was assessed by the Movement Assessment Battery for Children, M-ABC (HENDERSON; SUDGEN, 1992). All participants had the quality of the handwriting assessed by the Minnesota Handwriting Assessment (REISMAN, 1999) adapted to the Portuguese language. Furthermore, participants were tested in the handwriting and graphic production on a digitizing tablet (WACOM - Intuos2). Both the Minnesota Handwriting Assessment adapted and the handwriting and graphic production on a digitizing tablet were administered before (i.e., pretest) and after (i.e., post test) the intervention program. Only the EG was submitted to the intervention program. The intervention program consisted of 27 sessions... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)
Orientador: Ana Maria Pellegrini
Coorientador: Cynthia Yukiko Hiraga
Banca: Luis Eduardo P.B.T. Dantas
Banca: Livia de Castro Magalhães
Doutor

Une comorbidité entre les troubles neurodéveloppementaux est repérée de façon très fréquente chez les enfants d’âge scolaire. Plusieurs modèles se fondent sur l’existence de déficits sous-jacents communs pour tenter d’expliquer l’apparition concomitante de ces troubles. Afin de contribuer à une meilleure compréhension de la comorbidité entre la dyslexie et le trouble de l’acquisition de la coordination (TAC), trois recherches ont été réalisées au cours de cette thèse. Elles sont toutes basées sur l’analyse de la graphomotricité, en termes de processus et de produit. L’objectif principal de ce travail était de repérer les processus à l’œuvre dans les tâches graphomotrices qui pourraient être affectés dans ces deux troubles, tout en tenant compte des particularités de chacun. Nous avons fait l’hypothèse, en référence au modèle du déficit d’apprentissage procédural (Nicolson et Fawett, 2007), que les enfants avec des difficultés en lecture et en motricité se différencieraient de ceux sans difficulté lors d’un apprentissage graphomoteur. Les résultats montrent que la sévérité et la nature des atteintes influencent les performances des enfants pour un ensemble varié de tâches graphomotrices et pour l’apprentissage graphomoteur. L’ensemble des résultats traduit un certain nombre de particularités communes chez les enfants avec une dyslexie et/ou un TAC, au niveau de l’intégration visuo-motrice, ainsi que de l’apprentissage et de l’automatisation de gestes graphomoteurs. En outre, les travaux de cette thèse mettent en relief la pertinence de l’approche dimensionnelle pour étudier la complexité des profils d’enfants avec des troubles comorbides
Comorbidity between neurodevelopmental disorders is frequently found in children of school age. Several models are based on the existence of common underlying disorders to try and explain the concomitant appearance of these disorders. Three studies, all based on graphomotoricity analyses in terms of the processes and products, were conducted during this thesis so as to contribute to a better understanding of comorbidity between dyslexia and developmental coordination disorder (DCD). The main objective was to identify the processes involved during graphomotoricity tasks that could be affected in these two disorders, taking into account the peculiarities of each. We hypothesised, referring to the procedural learning disorder model (Nicolson & Fawcett, 2007) that children with reading and motor difficulties would differentiate themselves from those without difficulty for graphomotor learning. enabling us to assess their reading and motor levels. Results showed that the severity and nature of the disorders influenced the children’s performance for a diverse set of graphomotricity tasks and graphomotor learning. The overall results reflected a number of common features in children with dyslexia and / or DCD, concerning visuo-motor integration, as well as graphomotor gestures in learning and automation. In addition, the studies carried out during this thesis emphasised the relevance of the dimensional approach so as to study the complexity of the profiles of children with comorbid disorders

Grafomotorické dovednosti (GA) představují skupinu psychomotorických procesů, které se zapojují během kreslení a psaní. GA jsou nutnou prerekvizitou pro zvládání základních školních schopností, konkrétně psaní. Děti v první a druhé třídě mohou mít potíže s prováděním jednoduchých grafomotorických úkolů (GD) a později ve třetí a čtvrté třídě také se samotným psaním (HD). Narušení procesů spojených se psaním je obecně nazýváno jako vývojová dysgrafie (DD). Prevalence DD v České republice se pohybuje kolem 3–5 %. V současné době je DD hodnocena subjektivně týmem psychologů a speciálních pedagogů. V praxi stále chybí objektivní měřicí nástroj, který by umožňoval hodnocení GD a HD. Z tohoto důvodu se tato disertační práce zabývá identifikováním symptomů spojených s grafomotorickou neobratností u dětí školního věku a vývojem nových parametrů, které je budou kvantifikovat. Byl vytvořen komplexní GA protokol (36 úloh), který představuje prostředí, ve kterém se mohou projevit různé symptomy spojené s GD a HD. K těmto symptomům bylo přiřazeno 76 kvantifikujících parametrů. Dále byla navrhnuta nová škála grafomotorických obtíží (GDRS) založena na automatizovaném zpracování online píma. Nakonec byla prezentována a otestována nová sada parametrizačních technik založených na Tunable Q Factor Wavelet Transform (TQWT). Parametry TQWT dokážou kvantifikovat grafomotorickou obratnost nebo nedostatečný projev v jemné motorice. GDRS přestavuje nový, moderní a objektivní měřící nástroj, který doposud chyběl jak v České republice, tak v zahraničí. Použití škály by pomohlo modernizovat jak diagnostiku DD, tak reedukační/remediační proces. Další výzkum by tento nástroj mohl adaptovat i do jiných jazyků. Navíc, tato metodologie může být použita a optimalizována pro diagnostiku dalších nemocí a poruch, které ovlivňují grafomotorické dovednosti, například pro autismus, poruchu pozornosti s hyperaktivitou (ADHD) nebo dyspraxii (DCD).

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A escrita é uma forma de comunicação importante que se desenvolve com a idade e com a escolarização. Algumas crianças apresentam dificuldade em desenvolver uma escrita proficiente. Do ponto de vista do controle motor, uma escrita não proficiente pode estar vinculada à dificuldade da criança ativar adequadamente as sinergias motoras que dão suporte a esta habilidade. Portanto, estimular as sinergias motoras dos dedos pode proporcionar melhora na cinética e cinemática da escrita e, conseqüentemente, na qualidade da escrita. O objetivo do presente trabalho foi verificar os efeitos de um programa de intervenção, para crianças com dificuldades na escrita, composto por atividades manipulativas e pré-caligráficas que estimularam as sinergias motoras dos dedos por meio da variação da produção de força dos dedos. Trinta e duas crianças foram indicadas por suas professoras de classe para participarem do estudo. Dezesseis crianças, de 7 a 12 anos de idade, com baixa qualidade na escrita, formaram o Grupo Experimental (GE), e outras 16 crianças com boa qualidade na escrita, e com idade, gênero e preferência manual correspondentes ao GE, formaram o Grupo Controle (GC). O desempenho motor de todos os participantes foi avaliado pelo Movement Assessment Battery for Children, M-ABC (HENDERSON; SUDGEN, 1992). Todos os participantes tiveram a qualidade da escrita avaliada pelo Minnesota Handwriting Assessment (REISMAN, 1999) adaptado à língua portuguesa. Além disso, todos os participantes foram testados na produção gráfica e escrita sobre uma mesa digitalizadora (Wacom, Intuos2). Ambos, o Minnesota Handwriting Assessment adaptado e a produção gráfica e escrita sobre uma mesa digitalizadora foram administrados antes (pré-teste) e após (pós-teste) o programa de intervenção. Somente o GE foi submetido ao programa de intervenção. O programa de intervenção...
Handwriting is an essential manner of human communication which develops with the process of aging and schooling. Some children present difficulties in developing a proficient handwriting. From the motor control perspective, a non-proficient handwriting may be associated with the difficulty to appropriately activate specific motor synergies. Thus, the stimulation of motor synergies of the fingers can improve the kinetic, and kinematic parameters of handwriting, and consequently the quality of the product of handwriting. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of an intervention program involving manipulative and pre-calligraphic activities. The intervention activities were based on variation in the force production of the fingers for children with handwriting difficulties. A total of 32 children aged between 7 and 12 years were selected to participate in the study by the classroom teachers. The Experimental Group (EG) was composed by 16 children displaying poor quality of handwriting, and other 16 children matched by age, gender and handedness showing high quality of handwriting composed the Control Group (CG). The motor performance of the participants was assessed by the Movement Assessment Battery for Children, M-ABC (HENDERSON; SUDGEN, 1992). All participants had the quality of the handwriting assessed by the Minnesota Handwriting Assessment (REISMAN, 1999) adapted to the Portuguese language. Furthermore, participants were tested in the handwriting and graphic production on a digitizing tablet (WACOM - Intuos2). Both the Minnesota Handwriting Assessment adapted and the handwriting and graphic production on a digitizing tablet were administered before (i.e., pretest) and after (i.e., post test) the intervention program. Only the EG was submitted to the intervention program. The intervention program consisted of 27 sessions... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

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Despite the increasing use of keyboards in the classroom, handwriting is still considered a fundamental skill that young children need to master to succeed in most areas of the elementary school curriculum. Children’s school readiness is determined by an array of cognitive, perceptual, and motor abilities that provide the foundation for academic success. These foundational abilities must be integrated for efficient handwriting and a failure of this integration predicts later academic achievement. When children begin writing, they develop from producing incoherent lines to producing letters that are more common in their language or are found in their names. Children must then learn to produce the remaining letters in their alphabet to become proficient writers. The process that children use to master the letters of an alphabet is not well understood. Previous research has focused primarily on the production of handwriting as a single skill, yet the production of handwriting entails a process in which children must integrate visual, fine motor, and basic reading skills to produce letters and words. The process of handwriting also develops in an environment that is full of letters and words. To date, the literature on handwriting has failed to address the processes that children utilize during handwriting, how these processes change through children’s development, and how the environment children are developing in influences these processes. This dissertation provides a theoretically integrative account of children’s handwriting development. The objectives of this dissertation are to determine the letter frequencies in children’s picture books, determine the opportunities that children are presented to copy letters in handwriting workbooks, measure the influence of change in grade and growth of basic reading skills on children’s visual processing development during handwriting, and measure visual-motor integration during handwriting. The approach to test these objectives is to integrate methods from educational and developmental psychology literatures in a novel series of studies using content analyses of children’s educational resources, head-mounted eye-tracking and academic assessments. By understanding the interaction between cognitive, linguistic, visual, and motor processes, researchers may establish possible mechanisms for the process of children’s development of complex skills, such as handwriting.
1
Nicholas E. Fears

Handwriting is a fundamental skill that must be acquired early in education for academic success. For example, printing errors made by kindergarten children have been found to predict reading and language achievement in first grade(Simner, 1982). The dynamic interplay of perceptual, motor, and linguistic skills makes handwriting a complex skill that can be challenging for young children to master. In this study, the eye movements of 40 children between the ages of 4 and 8 years of age were analyzed to determine how efficiency in visual-motor coordination develops as they copy letters and words, methods that teachers commonly employ to teach handwriting. These data provide new information about the development of the processes involved in the complex skill of handwriting during the first years of formal education. In the early school years, children become increasingly efficient in how they deploy eye movements as they learn to copy letters. The new methods used here provide a more fine-grained assessment tool to measure visual perception during handwriting and offer a more systematic approach for identifying potential sources of errors made by young children as they learn to write.
Nicholas E Fears

Early childhood is a time to build the foundational skills that are needed to be a successful learner in primary school. Preschool students in Singapore are expected to be able to write their name and the letters of the alphabet with appropriate speed by the end of kindergarten. However, there is a gap in common standards and handwriting instruction practices among early childhood educators. Teaching handwriting explicitly improves handwriting legibility and fluency, and direct handwriting instruction is especially important for children who are at-risk of challenges in writing and reading. A student’s handwriting fluency and legibility is predicted by teacher competence in providing handwriting instruction. Evidence shows that teachers feel they are insufficiently prepared in teaching handwriting to their students, are not equipped to identify fine-motor delay in children and lack the knowledge to help the children in their class who are struggling to learn to write. The proposed professional development program entitled Handwriting Success for School is a professional development program by occupational therapists for early childhood educators. The program aims to increase the knowledge, confidence and competence of early childhood educators in Singapore to teach handwriting and support children who show difficulties mastering handwriting skills. The content and design of the program is developed following a thorough literature review on effective professional development for teachers. Principles of Adult Learning Theory and Collaborative Consultation model guide the development of the design of the program. When teachers collaborate with occupational therapists in addressing handwriting acquisition and intervention for their preschool students, teachers feel supported to help struggling students. Occupational therapists, with their knowledge and expertise in neurodevelopment and sensory-motor development makes them key professionals in training teachers to teach handwriting. By increasing early childhood educators' understanding of the importance to practice the evidence-based principles of handwriting instruction, it will lead to better student outcomes in their handwriting development at the preschool level.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Therapeutic Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg July 2017
A small percentage of students at the university are academically compromised by their handwriting. Various components of handwriting and performance skills have been associated with dysgraphia and inefficient handwriting such as posture and the presentaion of handwriting in terms of corrections made, which are not include in handwriting assessment for students in higher education. The current study addressed the development of a new screening assessment to be used in awarding concessions for examinations to university students with dysgraphia or handwriting deficits which therefore evaluated observable motor and process performance skills related to handwriting in three sections, an Observation Checklist, a Writing Checklist and for Handwriting Outcomes (copying speed, legibility and automaticity of writing). The study was completed in three phases with the first phase addressing a pilot study on the development of the Handwriting Screening Assessment based on steps in instrument development and criteria for screening assessment development. Item validity was established using a review of the records of 287 students who had been referred for handwriting assessment. The Handwriting Screening Assessment was piloted for content validity and item and subtest validity as well as dimensionality using Rasch subtest analysis after adjustments to items on both checklists. Construct validity of the items on the three sections of the Handwriting Screening Assessment and the unidimensionality of the checklists were considered satisfactory for field testing with typical students and those referred for handwriting assessment in Phase 2. In the second phase the Handwriting Screening Assessment was tested for construct validity and reliability on a sample of 298 typical students and 61 students referred for assessment of handwriting or dysgraphia. Construct validity of the items and subtests were confirmed for this sample of students using Rasch analysis for the checklists. Differences for known group factors and between the two groups of students indicated construct validity and reliability were satisfactory although not all subtests differentiated between the typical students and the students referred for handwriting assessment. v The Rasch subtest analysis resulted in low person separation index scores which did not allow for students to be identified for different levels of risk for dysgraphia or handwriting deficits using the scores on the Observation and Writing Checklists. A similar result was found for the Handwriting Outcomes. This was due to individual differences and not all students presenting with deficits in all the subtests of the three sections of the Handwriting Screening Assessment. Therefore normative scoring cut-off points and “at risk quotients” (ARQS) were established for the each subtest so students’ level of risk for handwriting deficits or dysgraphia could be identified. Significant differences between the typical students and the students referred for handwriting assessment were found for the three sections of the Handwriting Screening Assessment confirming satisfactory construct validity based on the ARQs. The clinical accuracy of the Handwriting Screening Assessment assessed on the ARQs indicated adequate negative predictive values for all sections and adequate specificity for all sections except legibility. While the assessment eliminated those without handwriting deficits and dysgraphia the low sensitivity meant that some students with handwriting problems may be missed. The Handwriting Outcomes - copying speed and automaticity were convergent with reference assessments of handwriting speed and oculomotor dysfunction, Detailed Assessment of Handwriting Speed 17+ and the Developmental Eye Movement, confirming the validity of this subtest in the Handwriting Screening Assessment. All other subtests had divergent validity with the reference assessments indicating they assessed different components related to handwriting problems not usually assessed in students in higher education which were found to identify them at risk for handwriting deficts and dysgraphia. The usability and utility of the Handwriting Screening Assessment was established in Phase 3 of the study. A detailed analysis of the results for the students referred for assessment of handwriting dysfunction was completed to inform the usability in terms of interpretability of the screening assessment and guidelines for further assessments. The profile of the students referred for handwriting assessment and demographic factors and items on the Handwriting Screening Assessment that placed them at risk for dysgraphia or handwriting deficits were determined. These results indicated that the subtest for pen grasp should be discarded but that other subtests which did not differentiate the students referred for handwriting assessment from typical students should be retained as they were moderately or strongly correlated with the risk for dysgraphia. The utility of the Handwriting Screening Assessment in terms of the types of dysgraphia to guide concessions that should be awarded and the benefit of the assessment in terms of academic outcomes were analysed. The Handwriting Screening Assessment can be used to identify students in higher education at risk for dysgraphia handwriting deficts and to suggest further assessment and guide concessions required but the validity can be improved with further adjustment and revision of items and scoring
MT 2018

碩士
國立嘉義大學
教育學系研究所
106
The purpose of this study is to explore the development of Chinese handwriting′s program with calligraphic style for second-graders in Taiwan. It was to develop a set of Chinese handwriting with calligraphic style courses to enhance the performance of second-grade students in handwriting. This study adopted the method of action research and there were 35 subjects of second-graders in the case school. The data collected included course plans, video records of practical teaching, self-reflection notes of teacher, and sheets, works, feedback, and interview of students. In the end, it proposed a Chinese handwriting′s program with calligraphic style for second-graders in Taiwan, which could improve the performance of second-graders in Chinese handwriting. The conclusion of this study is the following conclusions as: First, the most important component of the Chinese handwriting’s program with calligraphic style is guidance for the inside framework of Chinese Character in the teaching. Second, the program of Chinese handwriting with calligraphic style was developed through the process of reflection and revision of three stages of teacher’s action. Third, the implementation of the Chinese handwriting’s program with calligraphic style should emphasize the basic training of handwriting. Fourth, it should use the multiple methods of teaching, such as demonstration of handwriting, comparison between different works, pictures of Chinese calligraphy, and oral rhyme of memorizing. Fifth, it proved the effects of the program by the instrument of Chinese handwriting evaluation constructed in the study and showed the progress of handwriting performance of second-graders in their works and sheets. Sixth, it listed some Chinese characters, which second-graders could easily handle with, and some Chinese characters, which were hard to deal with. Seventh, the stories of calligrapher's in the program could lead the motivation, to enhance the interest, and to inspire the affect of learning the Chinese handwriting with calligraphic style. Eighth, the teaching materials used in the program such as copybook of calligraphers, works of students’ handwriting, teacher’s handwriting in the blackboard could enhance the appreciation ability of second-grader students in the study. 　　According to the above conclusions, it concluded that the implementation of the developed program of Chinese handwriting with calligraphic style improved the handwriting performance of second-graders. Some Chinese characters in the study, which second-graders could not deal with, could be the subject for future research.

TITLE Handwriting development from 1st to 5th grade of elementary school Author: Mgr. et Mgr. Olga Kučerová Department: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education Charles University Supervisor: Doc. PhDr. PaedDr. Anna Kucharská, Ph. D. ABSTRACT This dissertation project describes the development phases of the handwriting skills from 1st to 5th grade. The aim of this project is to describe the procedure of dynamic handwriting acquisition concerning two different alphabetic scripts used in Czech elementary schools. These include the traditional cursive script and alternative script that is Comenia Script. We focus on two different styles of penmanship, which are being taught in Czech elementary schools - cursive writing and manuscript writing. Our research sample includes two groups. The first group comprises writers who employ the cursive handwriting style of penmanship, whereas the second group considers the Comenia Script writer i.e. the manuscript style. The research consists of two parts - the theoretical and practical part. The theory defines the basic concepts related to handwriting skills and handwriting development. A substantial part focuses on both styles of penmanship - traditional cursive writing and Comenia Script. We depict their formal characteristics, circumstances of origin and the...

博士
國立彰化師範大學
特殊教育研究所
91
Abstract The purpose of present study was to investigate the handwriting problems of children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Present study was composed of three parts. In the first part, Handwriting Problem Questionnaire for Children (HPQC) was developed and utilized to find out the subtypes of handwriting deficit. Handwriting problem was classified according to its inherent characteristics. In the second part, the differences of handwriting related perceptual -motor skills between DCD and non-DCD children were compared. In the third part, the automation and motor control characteristics of children with handwriting deficits were further explored. The results of the first part revealed that HPQC was composed of five dimensions, including legibility, accuracy, speed, grip ergonomics and directionality. According to the severity in different dimensions, 209 children with handwriting deficit can be attributed to mild, moderate, severe, motor impairment, and cognitive learning dysfunction subtypes. The results of the second part indicated that there was significant difference between DCD and non-DCD children on the manifestation of handwriting problem. Children with DCD were prone to the problems of legibility, speed and grip ergonomics. The results also indicated the majority of motor impairment subtype was children with DCD, whereas the majority of cognitive learning subtype was non-DCD children. Furthermore, the DCD children lagged behind the non-DCD children on the fine motor skill. Besides, the perceptual function was also found to be inferior in both groups. The results of the third part revealed the automation of handwriting was remarkably slow in children with DCD or motor impairment subtype. It indicated the motor deficit would reflect on the difficulty in the learning of handwriting. In the motor control of handwriting, children with DCD may use phasic stiffness as strategy in writing simple words, but it was not found in writing complex words. It indicated the impairment of motor learning and motor control was the major causation of handwriting deficit in children with DCD. In summary, handwriting deficits can be classified into different subtypes. According to the subtypes and the inherent deficit of children, the etiology of handwriting deficit can be identified. This study inferred when feedback training of handwriting speed and pressure control is administered and the improvement in motor planning and eye-hand coordination is attained, the handwriting problem of DCD children would be am

碩士
國立新竹教育大學
特殊教育學系碩士班
101
The Handwriting Performance of Chinese Radicals Teaching Combination with Multi-sensory Handwriting Instruction on the Students with Mild Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Abstract The major purpose of this study was to compare the effects of Chinese radicals teaching with Chinese radicals teaching combination of multi-sensory handwriting instruction on students with mild intellectual disabilities in elementary school. The methodology adopted in this study was alternating treatment design of single subject experimental design, using 3 phase experimental procedures, including initial baseline, alternating and the follow-up phase. With intervention, 2 instructions were conducted alternately. The experimental instruction was proceeded for 7 weeks, and the participants of this experiment were 3 5th and 6th-grade students. The effectiveness of intervention was immediately, and two weeks later assessed. In addition, the data were analyzed by the method of visual analysis and C statistic. The major findings of this study were list as follows: 1. As for the immediate effects, three students performed better in Chinese radicals teaching combination of multi-sensory handwriting instruction than Chinese radicals teaching. 2. As for the maintenance effects, three students performed better in Chinese radicals teaching combination of multi-sensory handwriting instruction than Chinese radicals teaching. 3. As for the rate of writing mistakes and error types of catalogs, subjects performed better in Chinese radicals teaching combination of multi-sensory handwriting instruction than Chinese radicals teaching. Finally, based on the results and limitations of this study, the researcher proposed some suggestions for handwriting remedial instruction and future research. Keywords: the students with mild intellectual and developmental disabilities, Chinese radicals teaching combination of multi-sensory handwriting instruction, Chinese radicals teaching, the performance of handwriting

The Book of Arithmetic Problems of Johannes Whisler (1814-1815), a mathematics exercise book in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, is the central object of this study. This handwritten and illuminated book, created by a young Pennsylvania German man in the early 19th century, prompts a reevaluation of handwriting and doodling, with implications for the present era. The author documents the biographical and sociocultural circumstances surrounding the creation of Whisler’s cyphering book through primary and secondary historical research and applies Glăveanu’s theory of distributed creativity to describe the book as a creative process that emerged among people and objects, and across time. As direct indices of immediate actions, handwriting and doodling emerge in moment-to-moment action, even as these actions are embedded in longer periods of developmental and historical change; the author documents Whisler’s handwriting flourishes and doodles and describes the particular qualities of these mark making activities with reference to the sociocultural context in which they appear, Werner’s theories regarding the physiognomic perception of symbols, and Stern’s theory of vitality forms. The dissertation concludes with educational implications of the research, which include considerations of the use of handwriting as a component of art education and the future of handwriting as an affective and cross-modal medium.

Lam, Siu Yin.
Thesis M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2014.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-60).
Abstracts also in Chinese.
Title from PDF title page (viewed on 28, October, 2016).

碩士
國立臺中教育大學
幼兒教育學系早期療育碩士在職專班
107
Background: In addition to cognition, language, sociopsychological interaction and self-care, developmental delayed children also experience delayed development in movement, including gross motor and fine motor. The delayed development in fine motor may cause poor handwriting ability. The relevant pre-handwriting ability is closely related to basic performance factors, such as visual-motor integration, fine motor and pre-handwriting ability. Children are often referred to occupational therapy if they have difficulty in pre-handwriting ability and readability. This study is to explore the visual-motor integration, fine motor and pre-handwriting ability of the children with developmental delay at kindergarten. Method: Purposive sampling was used to select samples for case study. Thirty children with developmental delay receiving occupational therapy from a regional teaching hospital in Taichung were selected. The subjects were evaluated by this study at the time outside of the occupational therapy session so that the original therapy was not interrupted. The children also took the Berry-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration Fifth Edition (VMI), Peabody Developmental Motor Second Edition (PDMS-II) and Chinese Handwriting Evaluation Form (CHEF). The data are statistically analyzed by one sample t-test, independent samples t-test and Pearson’s Product-Moment Correlation. Results: The study showed that Beery VMI motor coordination was significantly correlated with PDMS-II visual-motor integration. Beery VMI motor coordination was very significantly correlated with the functionality subtest of CHEF and Beery VMI motor coordination was significantly correlated with the total score of CHEF. Conclusion: It provides a reference to the clinical occupational therapists in the visual- motor integration, fine motor and pre-handwriting ability of developmental delayed kindergarten children. Keywords: kindergarten, developmental delayed children, visual-motor integration, visual perception, movement coordination, fine motor, pre-handwriting ability and skills