Relationships between handwriting performance and organizational abilities among children with and without dysgraphia: a preliminary study.
Poor organization predicts nearly half of handwriting trouble, so screen executive skills before you teach penmanship.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Congiu et al. (2010) looked at kids in early grades. Some had dysgraphia. Some were typical writers.
They gave each child a short handwriting test and a quick checklist about planning, keeping desk tidy, and finishing tasks.
The team then asked: does poor organization predict messy writing?
What they found
Kids with dysgraphia wrote worse and scored lower on organization.
Organization alone explained almost half of the differences in handwriting quality.
In plain words: messy planners make messy letters.
How this fits with other research
Whitehouse et al. (2014) and Bo et al. (2014) studied children with DCD, not dysgraphia. They found long pauses and shaky timing, not weak planning. Together the papers show: some writing problems are motor, some are executive—check both.
Khalid et al. (2010) used computer pens to catch risk early, much like Sara’s quick screen. Both teams prove: process beats product when you flag kids.
Vos et al. (2013) saw oversized strokes in autism and blamed neuromotor noise. Sara points to cluttered minds instead. The ideas sound opposite, yet they measure different ages and skills; both can be true.
Why it matters
Before you teach letter formation, give a five-question organizer screener. If the child loses papers, forgets steps, or can’t set up page, add visual schedules, color-coded folders, and timed check-ins. Fixing the planner often fixes the writing without extra pencil drills.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Organizational ability constitutes one executive function (EF) component essential for common everyday performance. The study aim was to explore the relationship between handwriting performance and organizational ability in school-aged children. Participants were 58 males, aged 7-8 years, 30 with dysgraphia and 28 with proficient handwriting. Group allocation was based on children's scores in the Handwriting Proficiency Screening Questionnaire (HPSQ). They performed the Hebrew Handwriting Evaluation (HHE), and their parents completed the Questionnaire for Assessing Students' Organizational Abilities-for Parents (QASOA-P). Significant differences were found between the groups for handwriting performance (HHE) and organizational abilities (QASOA-P). Significant correlations were found in the dysgraphic group between handwriting spatial arrangement and the QASOA-P mean score. Linear regression indicated that the QASOA-P mean score explained 42% of variance of handwriting proficiency (HPSQ). Based on one discriminant function, 81% of all participants were correctly classified into groups. Study results strongly recommend assessing organizational difficulties in children referred for therapy due to handwriting deficiency.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2010 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2009.10.016