Impact of Hand Therapeutic Exercises Using Touch Devices on Handwriting Performance: Case Studies in School Children

Abstract

Handwriting is one of the complex tasks in school years and it is very important for academic excellence. However, various learning disorders can interfere with the learning of basic skills such as reading and writing. The primary objective of this study was to explore whether the digital learning environment reshapes the characteristics of handwriting performance in children with handwriting difficulties. Hence, we have conducted two case studies on two school children studying in 5th and 6th grade. These students were selected for the study based on poor handwriting performance as reported by their class teachers. As part of the study, they have participated in a training session using the ‘Dexteria’ software. This software comprises two fine motor activities and a letter tracing activity. The principle behind this study is that improving fine motor skills may improve handwriting skills. After the training programme, the experimenter has introduced some fine motor activities using crayons and colour pencils to observe the influence of the touch-based training in their drawing and colouring. They were also asked to write some text to compare the pre- and post-training handwriting samples. It was observed that their fine motor control in drawing skills and handwriting was improved. These case studies were conducted as part of ongoing research work to develop an application for children with handwriting difficulties.