מחקר בנושא כתב יד של ילדים דיסגרפיים

A Longitudinal Study on Dysgraphic Handwriting in Primary School

Lisa Hamstra-Bletz

Lisa Hamstra-Bletz is an experimental psychologist who is currently participating in a research project of the University of Utrecht. The research reported here constitutes part of her doctoral dissertation on the evaluation of the handwriting skill of primary-school children.

Anke W. Bloute

Anke W. Bloute, PhD, is a developmental psychologist working at Leiden University. She also is a school psychologist at a school for children with LD. She has published a number of articles on handwriting development, with regard to script characteristics, body posture, and movement variables.

Abstract

In an epidemiological study, the scripts of 121 Dutch primary-school children were evaluated annually, starting in Grade 2. The children were followed for 5 years. An evaluation scale for children's handwriting (the BHK scale) was used for rating the scripts on 13 characteristics and for measuring the speed of writing. 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: (a) fine-motor ability, (b) structural performance, and (c) stylistic preference. It was found that the children with dysgraphic handwriting (10% scoring highest on the BHK quality items) had lower fine-motor ability and, in the higher grades, showed less preference for a personal style. Their structural performance also was poorer than that of the other writers. Children with and without dysgraphic handwriting did not differ in writing speed. Some implications of the study for handwriting instruction are discussed.