Learning of writing letter-like sequences in children with physical and multiple disabilities.
Kids with physical or multiple disabilities learn letter writing equally well through silent tracing or clear verbal steps.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team compared two ways to teach handwriting to kids with physical and multiple disabilities.
One group traced letter-like shapes without talking. The other group got clear verbal steps.
Both groups practiced the same fake letter sequences so the researchers could watch learning speed.
What they found
Kids learned the new letters at the same speed no matter which method was used.
The silent tracing did not beat the spoken rules, even though the kids had limited working memory.
Both ways worked, so teachers can pick the style that fits the child best.
How this fits with other research
Lifshitz et al. (2014) saw the same kids join fewer play activities, yet here they mastered a school task. The gap is in leisure, not learning.
Lim et al. (2016) later showed middle-school students with severe ID learning letter sounds through direct group lessons. Together the papers say direct teaching helps literacy across many disabilities.
Boxum et al. (2018) pushed the idea further, proving that college students with ASD also gain from explicit writing plans. The line of work now spans elementary to college.
Why it matters
You no longer need to guess between tracing or talking when you teach handwriting. Either path works for kids with physical limits, so choose the one the child enjoys or that saves you time. If a student fatigues easily, mix short tracing bursts with clear cues and add pencil breaks as Kushki et al. (2011) suggest. Start Monday by offering both styles during warm-up and let the kid pick.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study compared implicit and explicit learning instructions in hand writing. Implicit learning is the ability to acquire a new skill without a corresponding increase in knowledge about the skill. In contrast, explicit learning uses declarative knowledge to build up a set of performance rules that guide motor performance or skills. Explicit learning is dependent on working memory, implicit learning is not. Therefore, implicit learning was expected to be easier than explicit learning in children in special education, given their expected compromised working memory. Two groups of children (5-12 years) participated, children in special education with physical or multiple disabilities (study group, n=22), and typically developing controls (n=32). Children learned to write letter-like patterns on a digitizer by tracking a moving target (implicitly) and verbal instruction (explicitly). We further tested visual working memory, visual-motor integration, and gross manual dexterity. Learning curves were similar for both groups in both conditions; children in the study group did learn both implicitly and explicitly. Motor performance was related to the writing task. In contrast to our hypothesis, visual working memory was not an important factor in the explicit condition. These results shed new light on the conceptual difference between implicit and explicit learning, and the role of working memory therein.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2015 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.10.005