Graphology is the study of handwriting, and most people
probably know that an eye trained in this technique can see
many different things about a person's character from his
handwriting. This article is not about looking at the
character tendencies of people by looking at handwriting.
Instead, it is about how we can use the handwriting of
children as a window to see how they are developing more
generally, and possibly to pinpoint areas of weakness that go
beyond the skill of producing neat handwriting. In fact,
writing has been called by some experts in the field ". . .
the merger of multiple developmental functions."
This is a very extensive topic, and cannot adequately be
covered in an article. It needs an experienced eye to
interpret the handwriting of a child in terms of diagnosing
general developmental difficulties. However, if we can
understand a little of what is going on in the brain of
children as they write, and appreciate some of the skills
they have to bring to writing, then it will become evident
how important this skill is (and perhaps we will not be so
quick to sidestep it by using the computer). And possibly we
can become more aware of problems that show up in the child's
handwriting.
One important thing to realize is that in terms of physical
and perceptual development, many children are not actually
ready for the skill of writing before the age of four or
five, and often as late as six. Obviously, in most places
children are being expected to start writing before this age,
and in these cases we should keep in mind that many young
children may not have reached all the developmental stages
necessary to do this. For such young children it would be
wrong to interpret the child's difficulties, or strange
handwriting patterns, in terms of underlying developmental
problems or delay. In this case, it is a matter of allowing
the child to "catch up" with the activity being asked of
him.
There is a simple test which indicates whether a child is
ready for formal instruction in handwriting. If he can manage
to copy the following simple shapes, he is considered ready
for teaching. These shapes should be clearly drawn for the
child to copy. 1) Vertical line 2) Horizontal line 3) Circle
4) Cross 5) Right oblique line 6) Left oblique line 7) Square
8) Oblique cross. Besides copying the shapes correctly, they
should be organized on the page in the same way as the
original.
Before a child can be ready for writing, he has to have
reached certain physical developmental milestones. The first
is the development of a "core balance." This core balance
creates the stability in the center of the body which
provides an anchor for the shoulders which in turn allows the
arm and hand to move freely. If there is a lack of this type
of stability, the writing is done using too much of the arm
and body, resulting in jerky movements. Writing should be
done with the hand and wrist acting freely and independently
of the rest of the arm and trunk.
Other physical developmental skills needed include the
ability to move some parts of the hand while keeping other
parts still, and the ability of the wrist to support the hand
while it is extended slightly, using the pencil. If the wrist
is supported by the table, then hand movement is more
limited. The movement of the pencil should be done mainly
with the fingers.
In order for there to be a high degree of dexterity in the
movement of the fingers, there ideally should be an open "web
space." The "web space" is the space created between the
thumb and the fingers, when only the tip (called the 'thumb
pulp') of the thumb is pressing against the pencil. When
children are young, they tend to hold the pencil with a
closed web space, lying the thumb right across the pencil. As
they develop the necessary strength and stability in the hand
and wrist, the grip should change accordingly.
If the child is holding the pencil badly and movement is not
free, then the child will have too much rigidity, resulting
in jerky or very small writing. Sometimes the solution to
poor grip is to strengthen the wrist, hand and fingers with
exercises, resulting automatically in a much better grip.
Another very important stage is the development of what is
called "bilateral integration." This is when both sides of
the brain are communicating properly with each other. You can
observe that babies don't move one leg without moving the
other, but a child should be able to move one side of the
body independently of the other. This communication between
the two sides also allows the child to "cross the
midline."
The 'midline' is the line down the center of the body, which
divides us between left and right. If a child can't cross the
midline he will write until the midline is met, and then go
down to the next line, move the paper, or switch hands. He
will find it difficult to get the direction of writing clear,
often starting at the wrong side of the page and mixing
letters which differ (mostly) by their orientation, e.g. b
and d (these problems are common in young children, but they
usually grow out of it by seven).
Bilateral integration is also essential for the development
of hand dominance. A lack of bilateral integration can have
significant repercussions for a child in all areas of
development, and the way the child writes can give us a clue
that this is an area of weakness.
Another major area of development that the child brings to
writing is sight. Besides being able to see correctly, there
has to be a high degree of control of the muscles of the eye
("ocular motor" control) for the development of writing
skills. This is where the eyes work together in a co-
ordinate way to search around, find and easily focus on the
desired information. The eyes need to smoothly scan across
from one side of the visual field to the other crossing the
midline (mentioned earlier). They shouldn't need to move the
head when moving the eyes from left to right across the page.
This is part of the skill of moving one part of the body
whilst keeping other parts still.
The eyes should focus clearly when moving from far to near
and back again. So even a child who has passed all eye tests
might still see things blurred when looking up from a book,
and/or when looking down again. A child with poor ocular
motor skills will find it very difficult to copy because he
will skip letters or words and lose his place constantly.
Meaning that each time he looks up to copy from the board, he
has to find his place again, often getting confused.
Especially if he can't remember where he was, necessitating
looking down again, only to have to start from the beginning
when he looks up.
The child will tire easily and have a poor attention span.
This is because it is a very stressful activity. A lot of
children with poor attention spans when reading and writing
are having ocular motor difficulties (poor attention span
will have the associated negative behaviors, as the child
attempts to avoid things that are unpleasant). One area
where we can see a marked influence on handwriting is
perception. Perception has to do with how the brain
understands what the eyes see. Think about one of the many
optical illusions that you've seen. You can be looking at
something that seems to be a familiar thing, but all of a
sudden you realize that there is something else in the
picture (it might have to be pointed out to you before you
can see it). Once you see it you can't believe you didn't see
it before, but until the moment of "ah! I see it now," you
couldn't. Your eyes see what is on the page, but the brain
doesn't chap. Different perceptual problems can affect
handwriting, and many of these perceptual problems will
affect many other areas of learning and development.
Perception is divided into different areas, and interestingly
enough, a person can have great strengths in some, and
weaknesses in others. Also, children learn to compensate for
weaknesses in ways that often obscure and complicate the real
picture.
One aspect of perception is called "visual discrimination"
This is the ability to distinguish between subtle
differences, like to see the difference between O and Q, or I
and L or h and n. A child with poor visual discrimination
will confuse similar letters, create letters of differing
sizes and/or miss out little bits of letters (like crossing
the "t" and dotting the "i").
Almost as important as visual discrimination is "form
constancy." This is the ability to see that things are the
same, even if the orientation or position changes. For
example that a chair is a chair even if it is upside down.
This is very important in letter recognition, and even more
important if the child is to learn that letters are the same
even if they have a slightly different form. For example, in
printed writing, there are many different fonts, and
handwriting is different again. A child with form constancy
problems will find it very hard to recognize letters in an
unfamiliar form.
It is also important for the child to be able to focus on the
relevant information on the page and "screen out' the
unnecessary background (called "visual figure-ground" —
"figure" being what we want to see, and "ground" being the
background that we "switch off"). Being unable to do this
leads to visual "overload," resulting in irritability and
poor concentration.
All the colorful posters in the classroom or illustrations in
the workbook prove too much stimulus for the child and create
such a distraction that they cause poor ability to focus on
the task at hand. These two skills (form constancy and figure-
ground) are obviously also vital for reading. Because reading
and writing are related activities, when there are worries
with the reading, then difficulties in writing can give clues
as to why.
Problems with the part of perception that deals with how
things are related to each other in space (called "visual
spatial perception") cause problems with spacing and size, as
well as organizing the work on the page. Trouble in this area
causes writing that is badly spaced, like words that run into
each other, then a gap in the middle of a word, inability to
keep the letters on the line, and a jumping around of the
letters. Those letters (like "t," "y," "g") which have parts
that are above or below the line, are poorly placed on the
line, flying all over the place. Other problems are very
small, and extremely large, lettering used in a mixed up way,
mixing higher and lower case in the same word or sentence,
and not knowing where to start on the page.
Obviously, a child can have a mixture of strengths and
weaknesses. Handwriting, when looked at with an experienced
eye, can give us clues as to what these strengths and
weaknesses are. Likewise, practicing good handwriting skills
can help general development and strengthen areas of
weakness. However, it is important to look at, and listen to,
the child carefully and not jump to the conclusion that just
practice will make perfect, and if only the child would try
hard enough s/he would manage to create beautiful
handwriting. Weakness in this area should alert us to the
possibility of underlying weaknesses for which a more
professional input in required.
