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Handwriting is the result of a process in which linguistic, psychomotor and biomechanical factors interact with physical maturation, cognitive development and learning. Digital tablets, which record the writing in real time, allow a kinematic analysis of written trace: the implemented algorithms analyze parameters as length, duration and speed of the components (trace between two pen-lifts) and strokes (trace between two minima of curvilinear velocity). The purpose of this work is to fill, at least for Italy, the lack of normative data on typical handwriting processes. This cross-sectional study will present data on 218 right-handed and Italian mother-tongue students, attending classes from 2nd to 8th grade. They performed specific tasks (tests of writing speed; transcription of a sentence accurately vs. speedily) by a digital tablet. The analysis showed many changes of the considered parameters across the classes, as in the horizontal, curvilinear mean and peak velocities of components and strokes, with higher values in the last years of schooling and a parallel decrease in the number of strokes/letter (improvement of automation). In conclusion, some of these parameters are useful for studying development and learning of writing and their values can be used as references to evaluate samples with different characteristics.

Handwriting is the result of a process in which linguistic, psychomotor and biomechanical factors interact with physical maturation, cognitive development and learning. Digital tablets, which record the writing in real time, allow a kinematic analysis of written trace: the implemented algorithms analyze parameters as length, duration and speed of the components (trace between two pen-lifts) and strokes (trace between two minima of curvilinear velocity). The purpose of this work is to fill, at least for Italy, the lack of normative data on typical handwriting processes. This cross-sectional study will present data on 218 right-handed and Italian mother-tongue students, attending classes from 2nd to 8th grade. They performed specific tasks (tests of writing speed; transcription of a sentence accurately vs. speedily) by a digital tablet. The analysis showed many changes of the considered parameters across the classes, as in the horizontal, curvilinear mean and peak velocities of components and strokes, with higher values in the last years of schooling and a parallel decrease in the number of strokes/letter (improvement of automation). In conclusion, some of these parameters are useful for studying development and learning of writing and their values can be used as references to evaluate samples with different characteristics.

Introduction. In childhood and adolescence, writing plays a crucial role in school performance, with important implications for motor and cognitive development. In recent years, the analysis of handwriting movements has been directly performed through digitizing tablets. This technology allows objective quantitative kinematic analyses of writing quality and has been used to characterize the handwriting process by measuring parameters extracted from the basic elements of writing, such as strokes and components. On the other hand, the hand movement has also been studied from a modeling point of view, starting from an agonist-antagonist control system hypothesis. In this study, we modified the procedure for the parameter identification of the Lognormal model of the velocity profile used to fit curvilinear velocity of handwriting movements. According to the Kinematic Theory of rapid human movements, these parameters contain information on both the motor commands and the timing properties of neuromuscular system. Materials and Methods. The proposed algorithm is described and evaluated for two writing tasks performed by 205 school children belonging to different grades in order to estimate the influence of schooling on these parameters. Results and Discussion. The results support the effectiveness of the Kinematic Theory for the synthesis of handwriting pattern with low influence of schooling on parameter values. In the next step the relation between the log-normal parameters and the physiology of the involved neuromuscular system producing this kind of velocity profile has to be studied as well as the dependence of the parameters on the linguistic competences required by the task.

Development of fine motor skills, especially drawing and handwriting, plays a crucial role in school performance and, more generally, in autonomy of everyday life.

Handwriting represents the integration of linguistic, psychomotor and biomechanical processes and deserves great attention from educators and health practitioners for its closely interaction with maturation, development and learning. It is well known that difficulty in this area can have negative effects on academic achievement and children with handwriting problems typically have difficulties to keep up with the amount of written work required during elementary school years. In recent years, the acquisition of handwriting movements through digitizing tablets allows objective quantitative kinematic analyses of writing quality and has been used to characterize the handwriting process [1] by measuring parameters extracted from the basic elements of writing, such as components and strokes. In this paper we investigated a series of kinematic parameters such as length, duration, mean and peak velocity of components and strokes of handwriting movements recorded by a digital tablet in 105 mainstream school-aged children, examining how these parameters change as schooling proceeds. Each student had to produce a repetitive sequence of cursive uno and to copy a short meaningful sentence both as accurately and as fast as possible. Main results show an increase, as schooling advances, in component and stroke mean and peak horizontal and curvilinear velocities and a decrease of number of strokes to realize each letter. In particular, a better fluency could be measured by evaluating the increment of horizontal drag velocity.