# Designing Pedagogically Effective Haptic Systems for Learning: A Review
## 3 Haptics Applications for Learning
### Language and Handwriting Acquisition
The successful acquisition of handwriting skill ensures that the cognitive processes of producing text do not interfere with the cognitive mechanisms of composing and spelling. When handwriting skill is adequately learned the motor skills of producing writing become more or less automatic; subsequently, working memory resources are liberated for devotion to \"higher-level aspects of composing\" [53]. Handwriting is best learned through practice and refinement [54]. A haptic-visual interface was created by researchers [PERSON] et al. [55] to investigate the optimal method of teaching Chinese handwriting to students. Participants in the study were divvied up into three training conditions: haptic, visual, and a combined haptic-visual. The subjects were asked to write a given character followed by two characters with common morphology before and after the administered training. The haptic-visual interface recorded teacher's writing skill and applied the forces to the students during the handwriting training. Their performance was measured in terms of mean speed, in-air time (pausing time in air during writing), size, order, and shape. It was found that the group trained via the haptic-visual instruction performed the best and had the least amount of air time [55]. It was found that the different sensory modalities (visual and haptic) were more effective for the learning different writing properties; for example: the visual modality was most important for learning writing shape, while the haptic modality was more important for the skill transfer of shape learning. [PERSON] et al. 's findings suggest that vision is most useful for extracting the shape properties of an object as a whole, whereas it was speculated that haptic information was more effective in creating an internal mental model of the shape and each stroke separately, resulting in better transfer of skills [55]. Another study regarding haptic guidance for hand writing skills development was conducted by [PERSON] et al. [54]. In this paper, full and partial haptic guidance methods were compared in their ability to teach Arabic writing skills. Haptic guidance methods are developed to support the learning of handwriting skills by physically moving the learner's hand along the desired trajectory [54][PERSON] In full haptic guidance, the haptic interface leads the handwriting task while the learner passively follows the movements along the trajectory. In the case of partial haptic guidance, the learner actively moves the interface, but is redirected by corrective force feedback when the user stays too far from the reference trajectory. Upon analysis of the handwriting quizzes and questionnaires, it was found that the most effective method of teaching handwriting through haptic simulation occurs when partial haptic mediated guidance is followed by full haptic mediated guidance. In children, acquiring handwriting is typically a slow and arduous process. To attain mastery of handwriting, several years of formal education are often required [53][PERSON] A visuo-haptic device, the Telemaque, was investigated by [PERSON] et al. [53] on its ability to help develop handwriting skill learning among pre-handwriting Kindergarten students[PERSON] Forty-two Kindergarten students (ages 4-5) without disabilities or special educational needs participated in the study[PERSON] To measure their handwriting performances, the children were asked to copy six cursive letters. This performance measurement served as both the pre- and post-test analysis[PERSON] The outputs being measured were movement velocity, number of velocity peaks, and the number of breaks during execution. In the visuo-haptic intervention, two exercises were presented by the Telemaque: The circuit game and the dynamic tracing of letters[PERSON] In the circuit game, the pen used for writing was attached to a force feedback arm which attracted the pen to the nearest point on the correct trajectory if the child deviated from the intended course.