Handwriting Difficulties: Introducing an Instrument

Objectives: The main purpose of this study is to produce an instrument for handwriting evaluation and to execute it on mentally retarded (MR) students. Methods: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional, and relationship study. 126 MR students (53 girls and 73 boys) ranging from 9 to 19 years old (13.23±2.17) from two exceptional children schools in shahr-e-rey participated in this study. A handwriting checklist made by the researcher was executed on all students. Data were analyzed by U-Mann whitney, one-way ANOVA, and Spearman rank correlation. Results: The test showed there isn’t a significant relationship between handwriting and laterality (P=0.196), sex (P=0.487) and age (P=0.449). There is a significant relationship between handwriting and grade (r=0.448, P<0.005), but no significant difference was seen between different grades. “separate writing” caused minimum legibility (81%), and “spacing” was damaged at the least (34.9%). Discussion: The frequency of handwriting difficulties in MR students showed that the necessity of professional attention in exceptional schools.