title: Handwriting Without Tears(®): General Education Effectiveness Through a Consultative Approach.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study explores the effectiveness of the Handwriting Without Tears(®) (HWT) kindergarten printing curriculum in general education through a consultative approach with occupational therapy.
  
  
  METHODS
  One cohort of students was the control (n = 19), whereas two other cohorts were experimental groups learning printing through the HWT curriculum (n = 20 each). The Test of Handwriting Skills-Revised (THS-R) was used to collect end-of-year legibility scores for all cohorts.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Both experimental groups individually and both experimental groups combined into one group outperformed the control group on all 10 of the THS-R subtests-scoring significantly higher (p < .05 using analysis of covariance controlling for age and gender) on 6 of the subtests for the former and 7 for the latter-and on overall score. Large treatment effects were found for the standard score for each experimental group (d = 0.81, 1.03, and 1.00).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study supports the consultative role of occupational therapy with teachers in general education for handwriting curriculum implementation and the success of HWT for printing instruction.
authors.affiliation: Denise K. Donica, DHSc, OTR/L, BCP, is Associate Professor, Occupational Therapy Department, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC; donicad@ecu.edu.
authors.forename: Denise K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Donica
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003479:Curriculum; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D006236:Handwriting; D065386:Historically Controlled Study; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009788:Occupational Therapy; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012017:Referral and Consultation