Autistic Children More Likely To Have Handwriting Problems
November 10th, 2009 | 
Author: I was just reading up on the new autism and news and stumbled across an article called Children With Autism More Likely To Have Handwriting Problems. It caught my interest as Dakota has problems with his writing. I don’t want to say it’s very sloppy but his fine motor for writing makes it difficult for him to write.
The article stated that children with autism may have lower quality handwriting and trouble forming letters compared to children with out autism.
The study included 28 children, half of them with autism and half of them with no developmental disorder, psychiatric, or brain disorders. All children had normal range perceptual reasoning on a IQ test. The kids were asked to copy a sentence exactly the way it was given in shape and letter form. The sentence was “the brown jumped lazy fox quick dogs over.” They were scored on five different categories: legibility, form, alignment, size and spacing. The children’s motor skills were also observed based on timing and movements.
The study found that half of the autistic children earned less than 80 percent of the total possible points on the handwriting assessment compared to only 1 child in the group without autism. 9 of the 14 children with autism scored below 80 percent on the form category on the hand writiting assessment compared to 2 of the 14 children without autism.
They suggest therapies that target motor skills to help children with their handwriting. Some suggestions were letter formations and general training of fine motor control.
Which if I stop and think about this and what the school is doing as far as his handwriting and fine motor skills for Occupational therapy this is nothing I didn’t already know. I know they have tried weighted pencils, different grips for Dakota’s pencils and other things. I do know that the OT is working on Dakota’s fine motor.
I just found this article interesting and thought I would pass it on.
Related posts:
Posted in 
Tags: 4 Responses to “Autistic Children More Likely To Have Handwriting Problems”
I really enjoy learning about all of this. I am sure that you probably post them for other mom’s of autistic children, but I really want to know more on the topic so thank you for sharing!
.-= Frugal Vicki´s last blog ..Holiday Gift Guide- Orglamix Review & GIVEAWAY =-.
admin Reply:
November 12th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Vicki I post them for everybody to read. I guess you say it’s more for Autism awareness. My dad reads my blog so he learns along with all of us. It’s great you enjoy reading it. Sometimes I post these so I can go back and reference to later if I need too. I did share this article with the teacher.
Very interesting article, this is something our daughter definitely has some trouble with as well as coloring. I thought it was because she was in too much of a hurry to finish. Just heard a great tip from our son’s preschool teacher to help them strengthen those muscles that is also fun for them – tearing paper. Good post, thanks for sharing!
admin Reply:
November 12th, 2009 at 9:53 am
That is really interesting. I had no idea tearing paper could strengthen the muscles. Thanks for sharing that. Dakota’s drawing is actually getting better. I am amazed at how he draws things. His writing though it’s tough for him. His dexterity isn’t all there.