Acquisition of handwriting in children with and without dysgraphia: A computational approach

Abstract

Handwriting is a complex skill to acquire and it requires years of training to be mastered. Children presenting dysgraphia exhibit difficulties automatizing their handwriting. This can bring anxiety and can negatively impact education. 280 children were recruited in schools and specialized clinics to perform the Concise Evaluation Scale for Children's Handwriting (BHK) on digital tablets. Within this dataset, we identified children with dysgraphia. Twelve digital features describing handwriting through different aspects (static, kinematic, pressure and tilt) were extracted and used to create linear models to investigate handwriting acquisition throughout education. K-means clustering was performed to define a new classification of dysgraphia. Linear models show that three features only (two kinematic and one static) showed a significant association to predict change of handwriting quality in control children. Most kinematic and statics features interacted with age. Results suggest that children with dysgraphia do not simply differ from ones without dysgraphia by quantitative differences on the BHK scale but present a different development in terms of static, kinematic, pressure and tilt features. The K-means clustering yielded 3 clusters (Ci). Children in C1 presented mild dysgraphia usually not detected in schools whereas children in C2 and C3 exhibited severe dysgraphia. Notably, C2 contained individuals displaying abnormalities in term of kinematics and pressure whilst C3 regrouped children showing mainly tilt problems. The current results open new opportunities for automatic detection of children with dysgraphia in classroom. We also believe that the training of pressure and tilt may open new therapeutic opportunities through serious games.

“It Is Not the Robot Who Learns, It Is Me.” Treating Severe Dysgraphia Using Child–Robot Interaction

“…We performed a long-term child–robot interaction to train the handwriting skills of a child with a complex NDD. The principle of the proposed treatment relies on multiple aims: relativizing and responsibility through a protégé effect scenario ( 27 ) employing a learning-by-teaching paradigm ( 30 , 38 ); handwriting skills through a serious games platform proposing activities specifically aimed to exercise pressure, tilt, speed, and letter liaison controls ( 5 , 23 ). In R's case, we observed a decrease of the avoidance behaviors, a better commitment, and an improvement of R's handwriting skills.…”

“…Future analysis should take into account more high-level features such as those described in Asselborn et al ( 23 ) during BHK itself. They would allow to guide rehabilitation ( 1 ) by identifying the cluster of dysgraphia the child is in ( 5 ), by describing with more details the evolution of the child, since some exercises are more appropriate at the end than at the beginning of the rehabilitation ( 8 ).…”

“…The other games— Dynamico —were computed based on the fact that children with dysgraphia may be distinguished from typically developing children by characteristics related to speed, tilt, and pressure when writing ( 5 , 23 ). We computed new activities to specifically train these skills.…”

“…To assess longitudinally how R behaves during therapeutic sessions with the Co-writer setup, we monitored the sessions and registered several metrics, either clinical or digital, as both can be complementary to describe with more detail the motor difficulties of children with dysgraphia ( 5 ). We assessed (i) the acceptability and feasibility of the devises, software, and setup in a clinical setting using a qualitative approach with an observer listing all significant events and R's comments during sessions; (ii) how the handwriting improved according to digital metrics and the gold standard clinical testing of handwriting called BHK ( 35 ); (iii) how the posture of the child tracked with a 2D camera evolved through remediation, as it is known that children with dysgraphia show posture impairments during handwriting ( 2 ).…”

“…In addition to the specific tasks involved in handwriting acquisition, when a child has dysgraphia, it can be negatively reinforced by avoiding writing due to anxiety that limits the improvement of the writing. This avoidance also limits writing opportunities that are compulsory in a training process ( 4 , 5 ). When difficulties are detected, they are usually addressed by occupational therapists.…”