Author

Jodie M. Guy

Date of Award

6-2003

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Occupational Therapy

First Advisor

Dr. Diane Dirette

Second Advisor

Dr. Cindee Peterson

Third Advisor

Dr. Ben Atchison

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of"Handwriting Without Tears" on students' handwriting, and to explore if providing proprioceptive input before implementing "Handwriting Without Tears" has an effect on the legibility and accuracy of handwriting. Three first-grade and three second-grade students who received direct occupational therapy services were divided into two treatment groups. Those students in treatment group A received a combination of proprioceptive input and the "Handwriting Without Tears" program during their treatment session. Those students in treatment group B received only the "Handwriting Without Tears" program. Each student completed the Minnesota Handwriting Test (MHT) before and after the 8-week intervention period. Also, handwriting samples for weeks 3-8 were analyzed to show any changes that may have occurred on a per treatment basis. The visual analysis of both the "Handwriting Without Tears" and the MHT suggest that the combination of proprioceptive input and "Handwriting Without Tears" may be more effective when treating the handwriting of elementary-aged students. However, both treatment groups showed improvement on the six different scores of the MHT. Therefore these results suggest that with or without proprioceptive input, the ''Handwriting Without Tears" program does affect handwriting in a positive way.

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