No abstract

No abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of two approaches used in elementary schools to improve children's handwriting. Participants were 72 New York City public school students from the first and second grades. A nonequivalent pretest-posttest group design was used in which students engaged in handwriting activities using two approaches: intensive handwriting practice and visual-perceptual-motor activities. Handwriting speed, legibility, and visual-motor skills were examined after a 12-wk Handwriting Club using multivariate analysis of variance. The results showed that students in the intensive handwriting practice group demonstrated significant improvements in handwriting legibility compared with students in the visualperceptual-motor activity group. No significant effects in handwriting speed and visual-motor skills were found between the students in intensive handwriting practice group and the students in visual-perceptualmotor activities group. The Handwriting Club model is a natural intervention that fits easily into existing school curriculums and can be an effective short-term intervention (response to intervention Tier II).

Multiple factors, both intrinsic and extrinsic, play a role in determining an infant's bottle-feeding performance. In addition to age and weight, the presently employed conventional criteria, oral motor skills, feeding practice, and feeding techniques also contribute to infants' feeding performance. Arbitrary age (34 weeks gestational age) and weight criteria (1,500 g) should not be the only indicators for oral feeding.