title: Assessing handwriting intervention effectiveness in elementary school students: a two-group controlled study.
abstract: This study examined the effectiveness of two approaches used in elementary schools to improve children's handwriting. Participants were 72 New York City public school students from the first and second grades. A nonequivalent pretest-posttest group design was used in which students engaged in handwriting activities using two approaches: intensive handwriting practice and visual-perceptual-motor activities. Handwriting speed, legibility, and visual-motor skills were examined after a 12-wk Handwriting Club using multivariate analysis of variance. The results showed that students in the intensive handwriting practice group demonstrated significant improvements in handwriting legibility compared with students in the visual-perceptual-motor activity group. No significant effects in handwriting speed and visual-motor skills were found between the students in intensive handwriting practice group and the students in visual-perceptual-motor activities group. The Handwriting Club model is a natural intervention that fits easily into existing school curriculums and can be an effective short-term intervention (response to intervention Tier II).
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational Therapy, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University, 35 West Fourth Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10012, USA. tsuhsin.howe@nyu.edu
authors.forename: Tsu-Hsin
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Howe
authors.forename: Karen Laurie
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Roston
authors.forename: Ching-Fan
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Sheu
authors.forename: Jim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hinojosa
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006236:Handwriting; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009788:Occupational Therapy / Q000379:methods; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D013334:Students; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014796:Visual Perception