School students spend up to one-half of their school day in performing handwriting and other paper-pencil tasks. Handwriting difficulties can significantly affect the child progress in the classroom and lead to academic underachievement. Limited data exists in India regarding the Handwriting difficulties among school students. Hence the study was set out to find out the Prevalence and Pattern of Handwriting difficulties among school children. A convenience sample of 1296 students was taken from the regular schools in south Delhi, India. Both boys and girls of 7-12 years old, attending school in a regular educational environment were included. The mean age of children was 9.15±1.89 years and ranged from 2nd to 6th grade. Children were screened out for handwriting deficiency using Handwriting proficiency screening questionnaire and based on HPSQ scores children were divided into Non-proficient and proficient groups. The handwriting pattern of the students in the non-proficient group was assessed using the Test of handwriting skill- Revised. It was found that out of 1296 students, 854 (66%) students had Proficient handwriting and 442 (34%) students had non-proficient handwriting. The mean HPSQ score of the Non-proficient group was 11.21±1.18 and the Proficient group was 23.6±6.33. Result also showed the negative correlation between the Writing speed and legibility (r= -0.94). From the result, we concluded that the prevalence of handwriting difficulties among the school children was 34%. Overall 67% of boys and 33% of girls had handwriting difficulties. The students with handwriting difficulties showed difficulties with Writing speed, Letter reversal, and Spacing.
Academic performance, Child development, Handwriting, Manuscript, Students
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