Handwriting Error Patterns of Children with Mild Motor Difficulties

Abstract

A large proportion of children referred to school-based occupational therapists experience difficulty with handwriting. Illegible handwriting is found to have secondary effects on school achievement and self-esteem. The purpose of this study was to identify handwriting error patterns of children with mild motor difficulties and to examine the relationship between handwriting error patterns and perceptual-motor abilities. Sixty-six children aged 7 to 12 years old with mild motor difficulties were involved in the study. The results indicated three possible handwriting error patterns: (1) Execution Factor; (2) Aiming Factor; (3) Visual-Spatial Factor. The Execution Factor was associated with visual-motor skill and sensory discrimination; the Aiming Factor was correlated with visual-motor and fine-motor performance. There were no significant associations with perceptual-motor abilities for the Visual-Spatial Factor.