Étude de l’écriture chez des adultes porteurs de trisomie 21

Abstract

L’objectif de cette recherche est d’étudier l’écriture chez des adultes porteurs de trisomie 21 (T21) en analysant conjointement la qualité des tracés et les propriétés temporelles des mouvements afin d’extraire les mécanismes de programmation motrice et de contrôle du geste sous-jacents. Les productions d’adultes porteurs de T21 (n = 7) ont été comparées à celles d’enfants tout-venant de même âge de développement (n = 8) et d’adultes tout-venant de même âge réel (n = 8). Les résultats indiquent que la qualité des tracés et les temps de production des adultes avec T21 se caractérisent par un niveau d’efficience comparable au groupe d’enfants tout-venant de même âge de développement. Les adultes avec T21 ne présentent pas de déficit graphomoteur spécifique (au niveau de la fonction motrice de l’écriture).The aim of this research was to study handwriting in adults with Down syndrome (DS) by analysing quality product and kinematic movement in order to investigate the underlying process. The copy productions of DS participants (n = 7) were compared to children matched on mental age (n = 8) and adults matched on chronological age (n = 8). DS handwriting was relatively similar to that of the mental age control group. Results revealed that adults with DS are capable of producing acceptable writing and did not show specific deficit

Handwriting in Children and Adults With Down Syndrome: Developmental Delay or Specific Features?

“…feedback during handwriting execution), reflected in a slow handwriting speed and oversized letters (Bara & Gentaz, 2010). Confirming the limited research findings in this area (Tsao et al, 2011(Tsao et al, , 2012Verruza et al, 2015), our results argue in favor of a developmental delay in writing acquisition in children and adults with DS. We observed an effect of DA on several of our indices, including stroke duration and stroke length.…”

“…They appeared to have greater difficulty managing the writing space (e.g., writing in a straight line, leaving a margin on the right), and wrote more slowly. Temporal analysis also failed to reveal any difference between the participants with DS and the DA-matched children in terms of either the number and duration of segments and pauses, or the total duration of the handwriting movements required to produced single letters or familiar words (e.g., papa) (Tsao et al, 2012). Once again, however, comparisons with the CA-matched participants pointed to greater difficulty within the DS group, as it took these participants noticeably longer to copy letters and words.…”

“…Given that analysis of Françoise's written production failed to reveal dysfunctions at any level of handwriting processing, Rondal (1995) concluded that the peripheral (e.g.., motor) components of handwriting in adults with DS are preserved. He reached this conclusion, however, without conducting an actual handwriting analysis, which is why Tsao and colleagues devoted two studies to the quality of handwriting and the movements required to produce it in adults with DS (Tsao, Fartouk, & Barbier, 2011;Tsao, Velay, Barbier, & Gombert, 2012), using the Concise Assessment Scale for Children's Handwriting (BHK; Charles, Soppelsa, & Albaret, 2004). These authors found that the handwriting produced by their DS sample was relatively similar to that of a sample of children matched for developmental age (DA), in terms of letter quality (letter formation and legibility) and production speed (number of characters produced within 5 min) (Tsao et al, 2011).…”

“…Instead, studies have analyzed handwriting strokes on paper. Virtually none have used a graphic tablet to undertake handwriting analyses, with the exception of Tsao et al (2012), whose study exclusively involved adults with DS. The purpose of the present study was thus to analyze the spatiotemporal and kinematic aspects of handwriting movements in a writing task featuring letters of varying complexity administered to children and adults with DS.…”