Perceptual reasoning predicts handwriting impairments in adolescents with autism

Abstract

Background:We have previously shown that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have

Handwriting Difficulties in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Scoping Review

“…The same study found that visual perceptual ability was only moderately correlated with handwriting legibility in children with ASD Cartmill et al (2009). In similar light, Fuentes et al (2010) reported that while adolescents with ASD did not differ significantly from their typically developing peers on a test of perceptual reasoning, this ability was predictive of handwriting performance. This correlation may be related to the ability of the children to learn strategies to compensate for motor impairments (for example, forming letters in a piecemeal fashion) (Fuentes et al 2010).…”

“…Fuentes et al (2010) also reported that adolescents with ASD performed more poorly than their typically developing peers on spacing. The effect of instructional cues (for example, use of lined paper) on these measures is unclear.…”

“…Myles et al (2003) administered the same test to children with ASD and typically developing children and reported that children with ASD produced a significantly lower percentage of legible letters compared to typically developing children (ASD group: 75.05%, typically developing group: 89.94%). More recently, Fuentes et al (2009Fuentes et al ( , 2010 found that children with ASD scored significantly lower than their typically developing peers on the legibility component of the Minnesota Handwriting Assessment (MHA) (Reisman 1993). Interestingly, Cartmill et al (2009) did not find significant differences between children with ASD and typically developing children on the Test of Legible Handwriting (TOLH).…”

“…In terms of individual elements comprising legibility, children with ASD seem to consistently perform poorly on letter formation (Cartmill et al 2009;Fuentes et al 2009Fuentes et al , 2010Myles et al 2003). Letter form measures the quality of letters and considers factors such as shape distortions, reversals, and rotations.…”

“…These divergent findings may be due to differences in both the handwriting task and the measurement of size. Whereas Beversdorf et al (2001) used a verbal memory recall task, the more recent studies deployed dictation (Cartmill et al 2009) and copying tasks (Fuentes et al 2009(Fuentes et al , 2010. Moreover, Beversdorf et al (2001) measured size as the vertical extent of six letters whereas the more recent studies defined size as extent of each letter stroke with respect to the midline.…”