Effect of pencil grasp on the speed and legibility of handwriting after a 10-minute copy task in Grade 4 children

Kinematic analysis of handwriting movements and pencil grip patterns in children with low vision

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.