Telehealth is needed urgently nationwide, given the COVID-19 pandemic. It isespecially urgent in rural and less populated areas where healthcare access is limited. Currently, because there are no pediatric handwriting assessments validated for telehealth use, the TeleWrite assessment would fill an unmet service need and expand the use of telehealth-based occupational therapy (OT) assessment in pediatric practice. This dissertation explored the preliminary psychometric properties of TeleWrite, a handwriting assessment tool designed to measure the legibility and fluency of handwriting for children in first through third grade administered via telehealth. A series of studies were completed to determine initial interrater reliability, content validity, and clinical utility using classical test theory. The Rasch model of measurement was used to determine the preliminary psychometric properties of TeleWrite using Winsteps® (v. 4.7.0). The quantitative Rasch analysis of TeleWrite included administration of the tool to 148 children from first to third grade. This study tested the initial construct validity (internal validity) and test reliability of TeleWrite using the Rasch model of measurement. The Partial Credit Model (PCM) was used for rating scale analysis because TeleWrite is composed of three distinct scales (handwriting rate, accuracy, and fluency) that differs per task (near point or far point) and per grade level. The Rasch analysis showed a generally good fit with the Rasch unidimensional model, indicating strong construct and internal validity and moderate ability to separate abilities of students reliably in terms of handwriting skills. However, following the Rasch model, a larger sample is necessary to obtain improved calibration, reliability, and validity measures. This study and supported by the literature described the need for a new handwriting evaluation tool validated for telehealth use. The findings of the current research contribute to the literature and OT practice as the first handwriting assessment specifically designed and validated for telehealth use that assesses all pertinent variables of handwriting associated with handwriting difficulties.

This study analyzed the effects of restricting the response space and selfevaluation on students' handwriting quality in two beginning handwriters and two experienced handwriters. Students executed letters with and without using a transparent overlay, in a multiple-baseline-across-letters design. The use of the transparent overlay included drawing letters in a space restricted by the transparency; overlaying a model letter on top of the written letter and; evaluating if the two letters matched. Letter quality immediately improved when overlays were used, and handwriting quality maintained when the writing response was not restricted by the overlay transparency. Prompting and feedback were delivered contingent on on-task behavior. Analysis was based on three different measurement systems.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / The intention of this study is to examine the quality and quantitative achievements of two hundred seventy-nine left handed children located in the elementary schools of New England.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1979. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 365-385. / by Theodore Thomas Kuklinski. / Ph.D.

Thesis. 1978. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Bibliography: leaves 131-133. / Ph.D.

Because of the fact that so little has been done to create a scientific, objective basis for a sound course of study in penmanship, it has long been the desire of the writer to develop some ideas that presented themselves several years ago. It has occurred that there is a real need for a basis of fact, rather than mere personal opinion, in the teaching of penmanship. While the great pen artists and the great penmanship teachers of the past and present have wrought exceedingly well and have made a wonderful contribution to the improvement of handwriting pedagogy, there still remains much to be accomplished in this field. Heretofore, penmanship texts have often been based too much on the personal opinion of the author concerning the order in which the letters should be presented. In too many cases this order appears to be a haphazard arrangement with no particular plan or purpose except to get all of the capital and small letters in the course somehow. But this order of presentation, and there are practically as many orders of presentation as there are authors, has been governed principally, in the writer's opinion, by the authors' ideas concerning the relation of one letter to another in form and possibly somewhat by their opinions relative to the difficulty of the letters. The easiest letters were presented first and the more difficult ones followed, being arranged in a progressive manner in the order of their difficulty. Little, if any, thought has been given apparently to the relative importance of the letters from the standpoint of the frequency with which they are used. As far as the writer knows, no attempt has been made to determine the frequency with which the small and capital letters are used. It is his belief that this information will be helpful to teachers of penmanship in placing the emphasis in their teaching more nearly where the need for such emphasis is greatest. Consequently, it is this problem which has been chosen as the field of investigation for this study. To this task the writer dedicates his best efforts to contribute something worth while, if he may, to the teaching of penmanship, without expecting the contribution to be in any manner revolutionary.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2009. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-71). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Mémoire (M. Ed.)--Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 1989. / Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

This design project will map, look at and give answers regarding: The story of handwriting from a pedagogical perspective, within a Swedish context. It is primarily based on a great interest in writing by hand, and the effects and benefits it has on its practitioners. Handwriting today compared to before is getting less space in the digitized society, but is handwriting as a practice still used in Swedish schools? The predicted meaning is that children in school cannot write properly by hand anymore, due to all technologies such as smartphones, tablets and computers. The question is complex and the answer is more than just a simple yes or no, and therefore this investigation in handwriting has been done. The thesis will look back in the history of handwriting and give answers to the question through both theory and practice. Through research it will document differences and similarities between how people born between 1930-1959 and today’s lower elementary school children are looking at and working with handwriting. To be able to make this comparison—a digital survey, field studies, workshops and handwritten letters and notes from persons within the two defined research groups has worked as research methods to make the result as reliable as possible. Until recently, the art of writing more known as “Välskrivning” was a very central competence in Swedish school. It was a graded subject where focus was on how to write properly and practice good handwriting. The fact that “Välskrivning” is no longer a school subject means that the children today do not have the same prerequisites for succeeding with handwriting in the long term. They get other opportunities in the digital world, but one does not have to exclude the other. In my research I have found that despite technological tools and advancements, children still enjoy and value writing by hand, and then it is my task as a change agent to break the norm that handwriting as a practice is disappearing in Swedish schools and give children the tools they need to continue writing new chapters in the story of handwriting. To stimulate learning with joy, work with fine motor skills and strengthen the ability to concentrate amongst children through a handwriting workshop is what the investigation has led to. The answers in this thesis will not change the world, but the handwriting workshop, designed as a pedagogical tool, will hopefully inspire and motivate children to write by hand for a long time to come.

Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Humanities Education / MEd / Unrestricted