Monday, May 7, 2012

Fine Motor Skill Level and Handwriting



A student recently did a research review on the influence of fine motor skills on handwriting.  Of the nine articles that could be included, 7 researched the relationship between fine motor skills and handwriting legibility and 4 studies investigated fine motor skills and handwriting speed.   The results indicated that children with poor handwriting received significantly lower scores on fine motor assessments than children with good handwriting.  In addition, the research showed low to moderate correlations between fine motor skills and both handwriting legibility and handwriting speed.  The researcher concluded that in order to manage handwriting deficits in children occupational therapists need to address fine motor skills as one of many components in a comprehensive handwriting assessment.  Recommendations were made to undertake randomized controlled trials to examine if a fine motor skills intervention program leads to improvements in handwriting legibility and speed in children with poor handwriting.

Reference:  McKay, Rachel, "Fine motor skills influence handwriting performance in children : a systematic review; and, Handwriting performance in children with developmental coordination disorder : the influence of manual dexterity and motor overflow." (2011). Theses : Honours. Paper 27.
http://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses_hons/27

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