Abstract:

Early fine graphomotor skills are recognized as an important school readiness skill associated with later academic success, and secondarily graphomotor difficulties at school interfere with the entire pupil's personality (in extreme cases, they may lead to serious psychological disorders). Well-timed diagnostics and specialized programs for developing children's graphomotor skills can minimize these risks. The aim of this study is to develop a new screening tool for identification of children with graphomotor difficulties already at pre-school age. We have developed the first version of the scale containing 28 items, which can be divided in five areas: the relationship of the child to motor activities, the circumstances of the drawing activity, the properties of the drawing lines, the properties of the spontaneous drawings and the handling of specific graphic elements. Pilotage carried out with N = 35 children and N = 2 kindergarten teachers showed that some items have low differentiation potential, some of them were excluded from further research and, two new items were added. The final version of the scale includes 22 items and will be used for extensive data collection and evaluation standards specification in a follow-up study.

Keywords:

Graphomotorics, preschool age, scale for screening, piloting.