HANDWRITING IN THE COMPUTER AGE. DEVELOPMENT OF GRAPHOMOTOR SKILLS – A RISK OF DYSGRAPHIA

The poster presents the problems of graphomotor development and its disorders in children aged 7-13 in the context of risk of dysgraphia. Written communication disorders, including dysgraphia, are a serious social problem affecting ca. 10% of people, both children and adults. We present a proposal for testing graphomotor skills in primary school students, using our own original diagnostic technique: the Profile of Graphomotor Skills. This instrument, containing the Chart of Assessment of Handwriting and Letter-like Designs and the Observation Protocol will serve to identify the capabilities and limitations in graphomotor skills in the patients investigated on the basis of analysis of samples of handwriting and letter-like designs, observations of the course of graphomotor activities, and measuring of the major parameters that characterize the technique of performing these activities. In teaching to write and in the treatment of school difficulties there are not enough instruments for the multifaceted assessment of graphomotor skills.
In the experimental version, the Observation Protocol comprises the following categories of the course of graphomotor activities:
I. HANDEDNESS
II. THE POSITION OF THE NOTEBOOK AND THE SHEET
III. THE WAY OF HOLDING THE WRITING INSTRUMENT (GRIP)
IV. THE DOMINANT HAND ARRANGEMENT
V. COOPERATION OF HANDS
VI. BODY POSTURE
The presented list of categories contained in the experimental version of the Observation Protocol shows normative phenomena and phenomena that disturb the course of graphomotor activities.
The empirical material was collected while we were carrying out a research project funded by Poland’s Ministry for Science and Higher Education. Our own proposed diagnostic technique, which we have authored, is developed as part of the research project “Written communication disorders. The Profile of graphomotor skills as a technique for diagnosing children aged 7-13. Development of graphomotor skills – a risk of dysgraphia”, which is being implemented at the Department of Logopedics and Applied Linguistics, Maria Curie-Skodowska University in Lublin. The experimental version of the Profile of graphomotor skills was applied in the investigation conducted in a group of 300 primary school students, grades I through VI.
When constructing the diagnostic technique and carrying out empirical research, the psychological, linguistic and logopedic competence of the project authors was utilized.