Effectiveness of a self-regulated remedial program for handwriting difficulties

AbstractBackground: Handwriting difficulties may have pervasive effects on a child’s school performance. I Can! is a remedial handwriting program with a focus on self-regulated learning and applying motor learning principles combined with a behavioural approach. It is developed for typically developing children with handwriting problems.Objective: The study aim was to evaluate the program’s effectiveness.Materials and methods: Thirty-one children aged 7–8 year participated in a cross-over study. Handwriting quality and speed were repeatedly assessed by means of the Systematic Screening of Handwriting Difficulties test. Difficulties addressed were fluency in letter formation, fluency in letter connections, letter height, regularity of letter height, space between words, and line path.Results: Mixed model analysis revealed improved quality of writing and speed for all children but significantly more improvement in handwriting quality for the children participating in the program. Although writing speed impr...