Handwriting characteristics among secondary students with and without physical disabilities: A study with a computerized tool Cecilia W.P. Li-Tsang a, *, Ricky K.C. Au a , Michelle H.Y. Chan a , Lily W.L. Chan a , Gloria M.T. Lau a , T.K. Lo a , Howard W.H. Leung b a Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China b Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China 1. Introduction Despite rapid development and advancement in communication technologies in the information age, handwriting remains an important and indispensible way of communication in everyday life. Handwriting is one of the most immediate form of communication (Feder & Majnemer, 2007), and is an important component of learning during school age. Students engage in 50% of time in school in handwriting tasks. Their academic results can be substantially affected if they have Research in Developmental Disabilities 32 (2011) 207–216 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 24 August 2010 Accepted 18 September 2010 Keywords: Handwriting Physical disabilities Secondary students Computerized tool Special examination arrangements ABSTRACT The purpose of the present study was to investigate the handwriting characteristics of secondary school students with and without physical disabilities (PD). With the use of a computerized Chinese Handwriting Assessment Tool (CHAT), it was made possible to objectively assess and analyze in detail the handwriting characteristics of individual students. Fifty participants (age range: 15–19-years-old) were recruited from one mainstream secondary school and 20 participants (age range: 17–24-years-old) were recruited from two secondary schools for students with PD. They were asked to perform three consecutive handwriting tasks: copying 90 characters using the computerized CHAT, an English passage copying task, and a Chinese passage copying task. The data indicated that students with PD were significantly slower in copying both Chinese and English characters in passages when compared to the typical students. Significant differences in the measures of writing speed, air/ground time ratio, standard deviation of speed, standard deviation of size per character, and number of stroke errors measured by the CHAT were found between the two groups of students. Further analysis on the data of typical students indicated no significant difference in handwriting speed among students of different classes (i.e. arts or science) on copying Chinese and English passages, and on individual Chinese words (from CHAT). The academic results of students also showed no significant correlation with their handwriting speed measured by the three writing tasks. To conclude, the CHAT system was able to identify a number of characteristics of handwriting on students with and without PD. It was suggested that the CHAT should further be developed into an objective evaluation tool to explore the handwriting characteristics of the students with a wider range of disabilities in the future, and to make recommendations to arrange special examination arrangements (SEA) for students with physical disabilities or other special needs. ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 2766 6715; fax: +852 2330 5124. E-mail addresses: rscecili@inet.polyu.edu.hk, Cecilia.Li@inet.polyu.edu.hk (Cecilia W.P. Li-Tsang). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Research in Developmental Disabilities 0891-4222/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2010.09.015