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Aims: Handwriting processes deteriorate with age and following neurological conditions. Improving handwriting is often a focus of rehabilitation. Yet knowledge of handwriting legibility in the elderly is limited. This study describes the distribution of handwriting legibility scores in healthy older adults, relationships between handwriting legibility, age and writing task, and reliability of rating procedures. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was used involving 120 healthy older Australians. Tasks included writing sentences, shopping lists and transcribing a telephone message. Legibility was scored using the modified Four Point Scale—version 2. Results: Legibility differed between tasks but was not related to increasing age. Conclusions: Impaired handwriting legibility in the elderly is less likely due to the effects of aging than the required task or medical conditions. Findings from this study may help therapists set intervention goals and measure legibility changes during handwriting retraining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Teenagers are often criticised for using 'textese' in digital messages (c u thurs). • Teens saw messages written by teachers and peers with different levels of textese. • They rated others, particularly teachers, more favourably for using less textese. • Teenagers have a nuanced understanding of the language of digital communication. Text messages are characterised by a casual language style, 'textese' (e.g., c u on thurs). This study investigated adolescents' perceptions of the use of different levels of textese in digital messages which varied in their intended recipient (friend, teacher). Grade 8 students in Australia (N = 90, aged 13–14 years) each read six text messages purportedly written by a fellow student, and rated the extent to which they agreed (on a 7-point Likert scale) that the message writer was intelligent, paid attention to detail, used an appropriate writing style, and was friendly. Overall, participants rated message senders most favourably on all measures when they used no textese, and least favourably when they used high levels of textese. This pattern was even stronger when messages were addressed to teachers rather than same-aged friends. The findings suggest that adolescents are sensitive to both writing style and recipient when considering digital messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]