Handwriting legibility and fluency and their patterns of concurrent relations with spelling, graphomotor, and selective attention skills.

Recent research suggests that handwriting comprises two separate subskills: legibility and fluency. It remains unclear, however, how these subskills differ in their relationship to other abilities associated with handwriting, including spelling, graphomotor, and selective attention skills. In this study, we sought to examine the extent and nature of concurrent relationships that may exist among these skills. Children in Year 3 (n = 293), Year 4 (n = 291), and Year 5 (n = 283) completed a large, group-administered battery to assess each of the above skills. Using multigroup structural equation modeling, we found that spelling, graphomotor, and selective attention skills together explained a moderate amount of variance in handwriting legibility (R2 = .37-.42) and fluency (R2 = .41-.58) and that these subskills differed in their concurrent relations. Graphomotor skills accounted for a relatively greater proportion of variance in legibility than did spelling. Conversely, there were relatively stronger contributions from variations in spelling ability to variations in fluency than from graphomotor skills. Furthermore, selective attention predicted handwriting fluency only, and it partially mediated the influence of graphomotor skills. This study further demonstrates that handwriting legibility and fluency are separable and complex skills, each differentially related to spelling, graphomotor, and attentional abilities even during later primary school years.

Prevalence and Cognitive Profiles of Children With Comorbid Literacy and Motor Disorders.

There is a high prevalence of comorbidity between neurodevelopmental disorders. Contemporary research of these comorbidities has led to the development of multifactorial theories of causation, including the multiple deficit model (MDM). While several combinations of disorders have been investigated, the nature of association between literacy and motor disorders remains poorly understood. Comorbid literacy and motor disorders were the focus of the two present studies. In Study 1, we examined the prevalence of comorbid literacy and motor difficulties relative to isolated literacy and motor difficulties in a community sample (N = 605). The prevalence of comorbidity was five times greater than expected by chance alone, implying some relationship between difficulties. In Study 2, we examined the cognitive profiles of children with literacy and motor disorders amongst a subsample of children from Study 1 (N = 153). Children with literacy disorder had deficits in phonological processing, selective attention, and memory whilst children with motor disorder had deficits in visuospatial processing and memory, suggesting the disorders should be considered to have both independent and shared (memory) cognitive risk factors. Children with comorbid literacy and motor disorder demonstrated an additive combination of these deficits. Together, these findings are consistent with predictions from the MDM.

Handwriting Legibility and Its Relationship to Spelling Ability and Age: Evidence From Monolingual and Bilingual Children.

Studies of the relationship between spelling and handwriting concur that spelling skills influence the dynamic processes of handwriting. However, it remains unclear whether variations in spelling ability are related to variations in the legibility of handwriting, how important spelling skills are relative to the amount of handwriting experience afforded by an individual's age and number of years of schooling, or to what extent this relationship may be task- and orthography-specific. We investigated these questions in a study comparing spelling and handwriting legibility in a group of N = 127 Welsh-English bilingual children matched in age and number of years of schooling to a group of N = 127 English-monolingual children, as well as to a group of N = 127 younger, English monolingual children matched to the bilingual group in spelling ability. All groups completed the Spelling and Handwriting Legibility Test (SaHLT) and a broader battery of literacy measures. The bilingual children were found to have poorer handwriting legibility than same age peers, and in some cases, than their younger, spelling-ability peers, suggesting that spelling ability, more so than amount of handwriting experience and years of schooling impacts handwriting legibility. This was corroborated in a series of multi-group path models, where all children's handwriting was predicted by spelling ability more strongly than by age, and, the effect of spelling generalized across two different spelling tasks in all groups. Finally, bilingual children seemed to draw on general (Welsh) as well as on orthography-specific (English) knowledge when handwriting in English.