IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCES IN HANDWRITING SKILLS ON THE COMPUTERIZED PROGRAM BETWEEN CHILDREN WITH LOW VISION AND TYPICALLY DEVELOPED?

Purpose: It is of great importance to evaluate children’s writing skills, as this ability affects their academic achievement. Technological analysis methods can now be used to evaluate the writing skills of school- age children with low vision. The aim of this case- control study is to analyse the writing skills of children with low vision using a computerized program and to compare their results with those of their typically developing peers with normal vision. Methods: Eighteen school-age children with low vision and 24 children with typical visual development (n=42) participated in the present study. Each of the children wrote a 20-word sample standard sentence; the samples were then analysed using the MovAlyzR (Neuroscript LLC, USA) computerized analysis system (version 6.1) to describe the spatial and dynamic characteristics of their writing. Results: The mean age of the children with low vision were 9.72±2.11 years and the control group were 10±2.02 years. Statistically significant differences were found in the handwriting samples in terms of the average width of the letters, horizontal start, vertical start and length, respectively (p=0.000, p= 0.010, p=0.000, p=0.030). It was found that the results obtained in children with low vision were higher in these variables. This result is in favor of typically developing children with normal vision. Conclusion: The results indicated that the school- age children with low vision wrote letters of larger dimensions than their peers with typical vision. This may be due to the difficulty of discerning the spatial dimensions of handwritten letters or because of the diminished visual acuity in children with low vision.