handwriting: a skill for life & learning
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Handwriting: a skill for life & learning. Prof. Anna Barnett Oxford Brookes University [email protected] Research Funding: Pearson Assessment Action Medical Research Oxford Brookes University. Overview. The importance of handwriting (and keyboarding) - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
HANDWRITING: A SKILL FOR LIFE & LEARNING
Prof. Anna Barnett
Oxford Brookes University
Research Funding: Pearson Assessment
Action Medical Research
Oxford Brookes University
The importance of handwriting (and keyboarding)
The place of transcription skills in a framework for writing
The purpose of assessment
Assessment of handwriting speed – an example
Assessment of handwriting legibility – an example
OVERVIEW
HANDWRITING – STILL AN IMPORTANT SKILL
takes up much of the school day
required across the school curriculum
helps to consolidate and demonstrate knowledge
used for personal notes & assessed work
required for examinations
useful in everyday life
not just used on paper!
a different motor skill to handwriting
sometimes recommended in place of handwriting
used more now in classrooms
required for course work in education
required in most workplaces
there are a range of keyboard styles
KEYBOARDING – ANOTHER IMPORTANT SKILL
THE SIMPLE MODEL OF WRITING
Common pool of working memory
Text Generation
Transcription
Words, Sentences,Discourse
Executive Functions
eg: Planning, Review
(Adapted from Berninger and Amtmann, 2003)
Handwriting,Keyboarding, Spelling
Writing is a complex task so learning cannot be left to chance
We need to be aware of the different sub processes that have to be orchestrated in order to produce texts
Transcription may prove to be a major constraint on progress
Acquisition of any skill requires opportunities to consolidate newly acquired skills to ensure automaticity is achieved where possible
IMPLICATIONS
Teachers not well prepared to teach handwriting
Some schools have good policies
Good practice not always captured
Focus on neatness
No teaching for speed
Little time for practice
Not clear how to help those with difficulties
TEACHER SURVEYS
WHO HAS TRANSCRIPTION DIFFICULTIES?
Common in classrooms (Rubin & Henderson, 1982; Barnett et al, 2006)
Children with developmental disorders including:o Developmental Coordination Disorder (Prunty et al, 2013)o Dyslexia (Sumner et al, 2012)o Specific Language Impairment (Connelly, 2005)o Asperger’s Syndrome (Henderson & Green, 2001)o ADHD (Tucha & Lange, 2001)
Children with physical impairments/medical conditions e.g. Hemiplegia, Cerebral palsy, arthritis
WHY BE CONCERNED ABOUT POOR HANDWRITING SKILL
Poor fluency related to reduced quantity and quality of content (Connelly et al, 2002; 2005).
Can lead to academic underachievement (Briggs, 1970; Sloan & McGinnis (1992), Simner et al., 1996)
Can result in low self esteem (Phelps et al., 1985)
HANDWRITING NEEDS TO BE:
Fluent / Fast / ‘Automatic’
Legible
Flexible
Comfortable
Taught!
WHY ASSESS HANDWRITING?
Identify children with handwriting difficulties
Quantify the level of handwriting performance
Provide a detailed description of handwriting performance
Evaluate intervention programmes
Aid research
HANDWRITING TESTS
Wallen et al (1996) The Handwriting Speed Test
Killeen et al (2007) An Irish Adaptation of the Handwriting Speed Test (IA) HST
Allcock (2001) Data provided from over 2000 students aged 11-16 in the UK, PATOSS website
Admundson (1995). Evaluation Tool of Children’s Handwriting (ETCH)
Van Waelvelde et al (2012). Systematic Screening of Handwriting Difficulties (SOS)
Hamstra-Bletz et al (1987) Concise Assessment method of Children’s handwriting (BHK)
DEVELOPMENT OF THE DETAILED ASSESSMENT OF SPEED OF HANDWRITING (DASH)
Barnett, A.1, Henderson, S.2 & Scheib, B.2 & Schulz, J.3
1Oxford Brookes University
2Institute of Education University of London
3University of Hertfordshire
Funded by:
Pearson Assessment
Action Medical Research
THE DASH & DASH17+
UK norms
Age range: 9-16 years; 17-25 years
Carefully selected sample
Range of writing tasks
Psychometrically sound
Alongside revision of Movement ABC (Henderson & Sugden, 1992) for 3-16 year olds
DASH SAMPLE Representative: 2001 census formed basis of stratification
Age
Gender
Geographical region (12 levels)
Parental education level (indicator of SES) (5 levels)
Race/ethnic group (4 levels)
Assistance from
Prof John Rust & Prof Susan Golombok
Psychometrics Centre, City University
Cambridge Assessment Centre
Ethics approval Oxford Brookes University
SAMPLING
57 schools
Parental consent forms distributed
Children selected from returned forms
Children with known sensory & physical impairments excluded
OTs/PTs/Psychologists trained to administer test
UK Region Sample N
Sample%
Census
N
Census%
North East 57 10.4 25 4.6
North West 86 15.8 54 9.9
Yorkshire & Humberside 56 10.3 65 11.9
East Midlands 47 8.6 47 8.5
West Midlands 53 9.7 50 9.2
East of England 16 2.9 34 6.2
London 31 5.7 55 10.1
South East 114 20.9 92 16.9
South West 33 6.0 33 6.0
Wales 26 4.8 22 4.1
Scotland 18 3.3 51 9.3
Northern Ireland 9 1.6 18 3.3
Total 546 100.0 546 100.0
FIVE TASKS
Copy for 2 minutes: Copy Best – write in your best handwriting; Copy Fast - write as quickly as possible but make sure every word is readable.
Alphabet Writing for 1 minute.
Graphic Speed: Making Xs in circles for 1 minute.
FREE WRITING – 10 MINUTES
music
My Life
sports
holidaysbirthdays
friends
school
hobbies dance
clubs
fashion
pets
television
SD-scoreRaw Scores
SD-scoreCopy Best Alphabet
WritingCopy Fast Free Writing Graphic
Speed
2 <5 <21 < 13 < 7 <7 2
3 5 - 7 21 - 23 13 7 7 - 10 3
4 8 - 10 24 - 27 14 - 17 8 - 9 11 - 20 4
5 11 28 - 29 18 10 - 11 21 5
6 12 - 13 30 - 34 19 12 - 13 22 6
7 14 35 - 40 20 14 - 15 23 - 26 7
8 15 - 16 41 - 43 21 16 - 17 27 - 30 8
9 17 - 18 44 - 48 22 - 24 18 31 - 33 9
10 19 - 20 49 - 54 25 - 26 19 34 - 35 10
11 21 55 - 64 27 - 28 20 - 21 36 - 39 11
12 22 - 23 65 - 74 29 22 - 23 40 - 44 12
13 24 75 - 81 30 24 - 25 45 13
14 25 82 - 86 31 - 32 26 - 28 46 - 48 14
15 26 - 27 87 33 29 49 15
16 28 - 32 88 - 95 34 - 36 30 50 - 53 16
17 33 - 36 96 - 102 37 31 54 - 55 17
18 >36 >102 > 37 >31 > 55 18
CORRELATIONS BETWEEN THE TASKS
Alphabet Writing
Copy Best Copy Fast Free Writing
Graphic Speed
.48** .52** .56** .54*
Alphabet Writing
.72** .77* .69**
Copy Best .82** .71**
Copy Fast .83**
** p<.000
DASH SCORES
Standard scores for each task (mean 10, SD 3) and the resulting profile
Total DASH score - sum of 4 primary scales, converted to Total Standard Score (mean 100, SD 15) with percentile equivalents
Supplementary scores:
Graphic Speed, Copy Difference, Free Writing Profile
Cut off points:
1 and 2 SDs below mean for item scores
5th/15th percentile for Total DASH standard score
MEASUREMENT ISSUES
Validity – does the test measure what it is designed to measure?
Reliability – does the test give an accurate & consistent measure of performance?
DASH & DASH 17+
UK norms for 9-16 year olds; 17-25 year olds
Adequate samples
Psychometrically sound
Provision of standard scores
Allows for quantification of handwriting speed
Various uses – screening, access arrangements, monitoring, intervention planning/evaluation
HANDWRITING LEGIBILITY
Important for clear communication
‘Legibility bias’ - poor legibility can impact on ratings of compositional quality (Greifeneder et al., 2010)
Assessment:
Detailed component assessment(e.g. Letter shape, height, positioning, spacing, consistency) (Hamstra-Bletz et al., 1987)
Global assessment - comparison to exemplars (Amundson, 1995)
No tool for use in the UK
DEVELOPMENT OF THE HANDWRITING LEGIBILITY SCALE (HLS)
Barnett, A.1, Prunty, M.2 & Rosenblum, S.3
1Oxford Brookes University
2Brunel University
3University of Haifa, Israel
Funded by:
Oxford Brookes University
Aim
To develop a Handwriting Legibility Scale (HLS) for use in the UK
A quick, easy to use and practical tool
For primary school-aged children (8+ years)
Combining features of detailed & global measures
For use by educational and health professionals
The script
‘Free writing’ task DASH (Barnett et al. 2007)
10 minutes
On topic of ‘my life’
‘Everyday’ handwriting
First six minutes used for HLS rating
Development of the HLS
Five criteria based on experience & literature review
1. Global legibility
2. Effort required to read the script
3. Layout on the page
4. Letter formation
5. Alterations to the text
5-point likert scale: 1-good, 5-poor
Summed to give a total score, high scores = poor
10 year old child
10 year old child
FIVE CRITERIA
Global legibility best predictor of handwriting difficulties (Rosenblum et al., 2008; 2011) 1 – all words legible; 5 – few words legible on first reading
Effort required to read the script the rater is biased if the script is effortful to read (Greifeneder et al., 2010) 1 – no effort required; 5 – extreme effort required
Layout on the page relates to poor handwriting (Parush et al., 2010) 1 – very good layout; 5 – very poor layout
Letter formation a focus for most teaching 1 – very good formation; 5 – very poor formation
Alterations significantly predicts poor handwriting (Rosenblum et al., 2004; 2011) 1 – no alterations; 5 – most words contain alterations
Expert and content validity
12 experts (teachers, occupational therapists, psychologists)
Feedback on wording and content
Overall support for five sections
Revised wording and instructions
Need for extended examples
Reliability
Sample n=58, 8-14 years, with and without handwriting difficulties
Internal consistency: Cronbach’s alpha .92
Sub-sample n=20, 9-10 years, with and without handwriting difficulties
Inter-rater reliability:
Intra-class correlation total scores .92
Divided into low (5-10), medium (11-15), high (16-25) categories: Kappa 0.67 (p<.001)
Construct validity: group differences
DCD groupn=29
TD group n=29
p
Global legibility 2.86 1.31 <.001
Effort to read 3.52 1.89 <.001
Layout on the page
3.86 2.17 <.001
Letter formation 4.00 2.28 <.001
Alterations 3.04 2.17 <.001
Total 17.28 9.83 <.001
No. (%) children with low, medium & high scores on the HLS
Scores DCD group TD group
Low 0 19 (65.5%)
Medium 13 (45%) 8 (28.5%)
High 16 (55%) 2 (7%)
Chi square: 31.1 (df=2), p<.001
Further work
Further refinement and clarity of instructions are needed for the ‘layout’ component
More examples to help raters and improve reliability
Checking the HLS against a criterion measure – what to use?
Data collection on a larger sample & age range
A cut off point needs to be established to denote ‘poor legibility’ from the total score
Conclusions
Practical tools are needed to help teachers identify and support children with handwriting difficulties
The DASH can be used for screening/identification, evidence for Access arrangements, intervention planning
With further refinement the HLS may be useful for identification, quantifying performance and intervention planning
Evaluation of these tools is an ongoing process
THANK YOU