Evaluation of Accuracy and Consistency of Letter Formation in Indian Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder

Abstract

Developmental coordination disorder is characterized by difficulty in executing task and activities that demands motor coordination and sequencing it in order. Children with DCD have frequent failure in academics as they have poor handwriting skill and the Handwriting difficulties are frequently trouble children right from their primary schooling. Researchers have documented those children with poor fine motor control experiences handwriting difficulties and the child with DCD takes more pause and they have less efficient letter production than the age matched typically developing children. Lack of automaticity in producing handwriting is due to temporal dysfluency. The factor that underlies this difficulty is the accuracy and consistency in producing letters. The current study aims to provide a better understanding of handwriting difficulty experienced by Indian primary school children and the study evaluates the accuracy and consistency of letter production. A total of 10 children of age group 5-10 years with developmental coordination disorder are included in the study and they were matched with 10 typically developing children in control group. The detailed assessment of speed of handwriting was used and all the children completed alphabet writing and copying task.  The results of the study suggested that children with developmental coordination disorder had higher percentage of errors in letter production than age matched control group typically developing children. They experience difficulty with allograph part of handwriting and require handwriting training.