1. A Comparison of the Handwriting Abilities of Secondary Students with Visual Impairments and Those of Sighted Students
- Author
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Harris-Brown, Talitha, Richmond, Janet, Maddalena, Sebastian Della, and Jaworski, Alinta
- Abstract
Despite the large number of people with visual impairments in Australia, all Western Australian secondary students are required to complete their secondary exams using handwriting, unless they qualify for special provisions. Students with visual impairments do not necessarily qualify for special provisions on the basis of their visual impairment alone. It is hypothesized that students with visual impairments in Western Australia experience more difficulties with handwriting than their fully sighted peers, which can potentially limit their optimal performance. To date, there is only one study that indicates that the assessment of visual-motor integration abilities is also positively correlated to handwriting ability in people with visual impairments (Uysal & Aki, 2012). The primary objective of the study presented here is to determine if there is a statistically significant difference in the handwriting performance of people with visual impairments compared to that of sighted individuals. As a secondary objective, this study makes an effort to determine if there is evidence supporting the use of The Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (Beery & Beery, 2010) as an indicator of handwriting performance in individuals with visual impairments.
- Published
- 2015