Examining the Effectiveness of My Scrivener on Handwriting Legibility
Condition: Healthy Children
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in handwriting performance in elementary
      aged children who received handwriting training which included use of the My Scrivener
      stylus. Training on the My Scrivener stylus provided additional feedback to the children
      which is hypothesized to produce significant improvement.
    

Detailed description: 
      Once parental consent was given, students met individually with the PI or a trained
      occupational therapy graduate student in a private space at the Boys and Girls Club of the
      Northern Shenandoah Valley for a pre-test evaluation session. The evaluation consisted of the
      following:

        1. Evaluation Tool of Children's Handwriting (ETCH; Amundson, 1995). This is a
           criterion-referenced tool measuring a child's legibility and speed in grades one through
           six. This measure is able to evaluate both manuscript and cursive handwriting; however,
           only the manuscript portion will be used as that will be the focus of the club's
           training. The ETCH asks the child to write letters and words in lower-case and
           upper-case, write numerals, perform near point and far point copying, write to
           dictation, and compose original sentences. Total time for the evaluation is 15-20
           minutes.

        2. Brief Assessment of Motor Function (BAMF: Parks, Cintas, Chaffin, & Gerber, 2007). This
           is a criterion referenced tool that can identify gross, fine, and oral motor performance
           in as little as 10 minutes. For this particular study, only the Fine Motor Scale of the
           BAMF will be used. Data from this tool will be used to categorize subjects for between
           group comparisons.

        3. The Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration (VMI: Beery, 1998). This
           gold-standard tool measures a child's visual motor performance by asking them to copy
           geometric shapes ranging from the very simple to the very complex. Data from this tool
           will be used to categorize subjects for between group comparisons.

      Once all children were evaluated, twice weekly Handwriting Camp sessions were held. During
      these small group sessions lasting approximately 30 minutes each, 4 children at a time
      received instruction from the Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum from either the PI or
      trained OT graduate students and 20 minutes of supervised practice time on the My Scrivener
      equipment to reinforce the letter writing instruction for that day.

      The Handwriting Camp sessions lasted for approximately 8 weeks.

      At the conclusion of the camp, the pre-tests were re-administered as well as an open-ended
      question interview was conducted on how well the child enjoyed using the device.
    

Intervention name(s): Handwriting Training using My Scrivener
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Subjects received 20 minutes of training per week which included writing letters and words with the My Scivener device.
Intervention model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: single subject; quantitative