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PubMed1983

Handwriting movement quality in prekindergarten and kindergarten children.

A Handwriting Movement Rating Scale (HMRS) was devised to help evaluate children's kinetic ability during the early stages of acquiring this skill. Test subjects were 72 children, divided into four groups according to age and scholastic ability. Normal kindergarten-age children scored significantly better than those in the prekindergarten category, supporting the general observation that handwriting movement improves with maturation and experience. Kindergarten children identified as being at risk for future learning problems performed significantly lower on the HMRS than the normal kindergarten group. There was no significant difference between the scores of at-risk and retained (held-over) kindergarten children. In a second experimental sampling of 57 normal kindergarten children, 35% achieved perfect scores. The HMRS appears to be a useful adjunct in the assessment of handwriting problems.

Child↗

PubMed1990

Effects of spatial and motor demands in handwriting.

Four experiments were conducted to study response programming in handwriting tasks. Twelve right-handed subjects wrote acoustically presented words and phrases, and their handwriting was digitally recorded. Changes in latency, movement time, trajectory length, and pen pressure were studied as a function of response complexity (i.e., word length, complexity of initial letter, and spacing distance). The lengthening of the spatiotemporal parameters preceding the more complex structures is interpreted to be a reflection of the effects of mental load. The results further indicate that the choice of a programming strategy is dependent on the structural complexity of the task. Writing pressure decreased as a function of increased sequence length. The findings support a hierarchical model of handwriting.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2004

The writer independent online handwriting recognition system frog on hand and cluster generative statistical dynamic time warping.

In this paper, we give a comprehensive description of our writer-independent online handwriting recognition system frog on hand. The focus of this work concerns the presentation of the classification/training approach, which we call cluster generative statistical dynamic time warping (CSDTW). CSDTW is a general, scalable, HMM-based method for variable-sized, sequential data that holistically combines cluster analysis and statistical sequence modeling. It can handle general classification problems that rely on this sequential type of data, e.g., speech recognition, genome processing, robotics, etc. Contrary to previous attempts, clustering and statistical sequence modeling are embedded in a single feature space and use a closely related distance measure. We show character recognition experiments of frog on hand using CSDTW on the UNIPEN online handwriting database. The recognition accuracy is significantly higher than reported results of other handwriting recognition systems. Finally, we describe the real-time implementation of frog on hand on a Linux Compaq iPAQ embedded device.

Algorithms↗

PubMed1974

Handwriting as an operant.

An apparatus was designed to monitor handwriting behavior. Two subjects were studied under various schedules of monetary reinforcement for handwriting. The different schedules engendered and maintained distinctive response patterns but the rates of sustained responding did not vary across schedules. The development of fixed-interval performance following continuous reinforcement resembled the same transition in lower animals. In one subject, availability of reading material interacted with the schedule to determine response pattern. It was suggested that handwriting may be a more appropriate response for the experimental analysis of human behavior than the more frequently used button-pushing or lever-pulling responses.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1996

Fine motor and handwriting problems after treatment for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Motor skills were investigated in 18 children 2 years after treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Gross and fine motor functioning were examined with the Movement Assessment Battery for Children. Handwriting as a specific fine motor skill was studied with a computerized writing task. We conclude that 2 years after cessation of treatment motor problems in ALL survivors were still present. Dysfunctions were mainly pronounced in handwriting and fine motor skills.

Child↗

PubMed1987

A model of handwriting.

The research reported here is concerned with hand trajectory planning for the class of movements involved in handwriting. Previous studies show that the kinematics of human two-joint arm movements in the horizontal plane can be described by a model which is based on dynamic minimization of the square of the third derivative of hand position (jerk), integrated over the entire movement. We extend this approach to both the analysis and the synthesis of the trajectories occurring in the generation of handwritten characters. Several basic strokes are identified and possible stroke concatenation rules are suggested. Given a concise symbolic representation of a stroke shape, a simple algorithm computes the complete kinematic specification of the corresponding trajectory. A handwriting generation model based on a kinematics from shape principle and on dynamic optimization is formulated and tested. Good qualitative and quantitative agreement was found between subject recordings and trajectories generated by the model. The simple symbolic representation of hand motion suggested here may permit the central nervous system to learn, store and modify motor action plans for writing in an efficient manner.

Cybernetics↗

PubMed1985

Cerebellar astrocytoma presenting as deterioration of handwriting in a child.

Deterioration of handwriting in an 11-year-old boy over a 2 month period was found to be caused by a cerebellar astrocytoma. The clinical picture was characterised by a lack of the classic symptoms of increased intracranial pressure. The only positive neurological findings pointed to an isolated right cerebellar symptomatology expressed by mild intention tremor and decreased tone of the right hand. Progressive deterioration of handwriting can be an ominous sign and it should be known to all professionals, as a lack of awareness can cause delay in expert referral and diagnosis.

Astrocytoma↗

PubMed2000

Interjoint coordination during handwriting-like movements.

The present study investigates intrinsic preferences and tendencies in coordination of the wrist and finger movements during handwriting-like tasks. Movement of the inkless pen tip in nine right-handed subjects was registered with a digitizer. One circle-drawing task and four line-drawing tasks were included in the experiment. The line-drawing task included: (1) drawing with the wrist only, (2) drawing with the fingers only, (3) an equivalent pattern consisting of the simultaneous flexion/extension of the wrist and fingers, and (4) a nonequivalent pattern in which wrist flexion was accompanied by finger extension and wrist extension was accompanied by finger flexion. Both the line and circle drawing were performed repetitively at four speed levels, ranging from slow to "as fast as possible" movements. The analysis of the line drawing revealed differential variability and temporal characteristics across the four movement patterns. While the equivalent pattern had characteristics of performance similar to those observed in the wrist-only and fingers-only pattern, the nonequivalent pattern was more variable and was executed slower when as fast as possible movement was required, compared to the other three patterns. The circle-drawing task also revealed intrinsic tendencies in coordination of the wrist and fingers. These tendencies were manifested by a spontaneous transition of the circular path of the pen tip to a tilted oval with increases in movement speed. The transition to the oval shape was accompanied by decreases in relative phase between the wrist and finger movements, whereas amplitudes of these movements were not affected by movement speed manipulations. The results suggest that subjects did not display a tendency to decrease the number of joints involved when executing the patterns that required simultaneous wrist and finger movements. Instead, there were preferences during these patterns to integrate wrist and finger movements with low relative phase. The findings are interpreted in terms of biomechanical constraints imposed on the wrist-finger linkage. This interpretation was further examined by testing two left-handed subjects. The data obtained showed symmetrical preferences in joint coordination. Collectively, the findings support a supposition that the shape of cursive letters may have been adjusted to the biomechanical structure of the hand to facilitate the motor act of handwriting.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

Invariant properties between stroke features in handwriting.

A handwriting pattern is considered as a sequence of ballistic strokes. Replications of a pattern may be generated from a single, higher-level memory representation, acting as a motor program. Therefore, those stroke features which show the most invariant pattern are probably related to the parameters of the higher-level representation, whereas the more noisy features are probably related to the parameters derived at the lower levels (top-down hierarchy). This hierarchy of invariances can be revealed by the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the between-parameter correlations, and the between-condition correlations. Similarly, at the higher level a sequence of strokes may act as a unit from which individual strokes are derived (sequence hierarchy). This hierarchy of invariances can be revealed by the between-stroke correlation, which forms a weaker criterion than rescalability, which has been rejected mostly. Previous research showed that vertical stroke size has higher SNRs and higher between-condition correlations than stroke duration or peak force, whereas the latter two features were also negatively correlated. This suggested that vertical stroke size is a higher-level parameter than the other two. The present research largely confirmed this top-down hierarchy and even for upstrokes and downstrokes separately. Downstrokes were more invariant than upstrokes in terms of vertical stroke size. However, contrary to the vertical stroke size, the horizontal stroke size was not invariant. Both vertical and horizontal sizes showed substantial between-stroke correlations. In contrast, the stroke durations did not show any between-stroke correlations. This suggests that stroke segmentation is reliable in spite of the discrete sampling of the handwriting movements.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

Phonological and orthographic demands in the production of handwriting.

In an experimental handwriting task, with two parts, we varied the phonological and orthographic complexity of visually presented nonwords. Twelve adult subjects had to write these nonwords in shorthand as well as in Latin script. Phonological complexity was varied by presenting a nonword which included two identical vowel characters. These were either phonologically similar (simple condition) or phonologically different (complex condition). Orthographic complexity was varied by using nonwords which either have a graphemic format for shorthand that corresponds with the graphemic format that is applied for Latin script (simple condition) or a graphemic format for shorthand which is discrepant from the Latin script format (complex condition). It appeared that a higher degree of phonological and orthographic complexity led to a slower and less fluent performance in graphemes that preceded the actual locus of complexity of the nonword. Furthermore, complexity effects were by far the strongest under the production of shorthand. The results are interpreted from the point of view of a psychomotor theory of handwriting, which assumes that the spelling process of visually presented nonwords may follow a phonological or an orthographic (sublexical) route. The finding that orthographic complexity interferes with the production of a phonologically oriented task such as shorthand is interpreted as evidence in favour of an interactive transmission of information between these two processing routes.

Adult↗

PubMed1986

EMG biofeedback for handwriting disabilities: a critical examination of the literature.

A critical examination of the literature on the use of electromyographic (EMG) biofeedback for problems of handwriting is presented. Examined are the procedures, results and conclusions of clinical treatments of writer's cramp and the habilitation of writing. The major flaws in each study are discussed and conclusions drawn from the review are presented, the primary one being that EMG biofeedback of the muscles of the upper extremity has yet to be demonstrated as a treatment of choice for handwriting disabilities. The lack of a sound foundation of data is seen as the main reason for the paucity of investigations in this particular area. Suggestions for further work are offered.

Arousal↗

PubMed1994

A computational procedure for movement analysis in handwriting.

Validity of handwriting movement data recorded with digitizing tablets is poorly reflected by manufacturer's specifications. Actual errors of positional data are in fact in a critical range, in particular when time derivatives are calculated. Because differentiation magnifies errors in the displacement data, data smoothing becomes crucial. A new method for smoothing and differentiating noisy handwriting movement data is proposed. Non-parametric estimation of regression functions using kernel estimates generally offers simple application and extremely fast calculation. Assessing simulation data the efficiency of the procedure was investigated and compared with butterworth filters and finite impulse response (FIR) filters. Kernel estimates show a slightly elevated bias, but strongly reduced residual variance in the velocity and acceleration signals. The overall smoothing behaviour of kernel estimates is better than butterworth filters and very similar to FIR filters, if their transition band is chosen appropriately.

Electronic Data Processing↗

PubMed1979

The effects of marijuana and alcohol usage on handwriting.

In this study the handwriting of twelve individuals under the influence of marijuana, alcohol, and a combination of the two was compared with control samples. It was found that marijuana smoking in moderate amounts had less effect on the handwriting of the individuals than did alcohol. It was also found that when the two were combined the gross changes observed were probably due to the effect of the alcohol alone.

Cannabis↗

PubMed2005

Design and evaluation approach for increasing stability and performance of touch pens in screen handwriting tasks.

Touch pens allow user to write directly on a computer screen. An ergonomically designed touch pen can improve user performance and reduce musculoskeletal injuries. This study investigates the touch pen use in three sections. First, observations of users' handwriting during three screen tasks: writing, pointing-and-clicking and drawing. Second, examinations of the design and development of touch pens based on observed results and related design theory. Third, this study compares the five-point grip pen (FPGP) with the common touch pen. Study conclusions are as follows: (1) The gesture of gripping a common touch pen for on-screen handwriting is unnatural; that is, users tend to use the wrist, elbow or little finger for support. A user's hand and fingers are in a more natural position when using an FPGP. (2) User performance with the FPGP is superior to that with the common touch pen during three screen tasks. (3) The advantages of the FPGP include: increased hand stability, reduced hand fatigue, enhanced performance, and provided adjustability. (4) This study proposed an FPGP whereby a brace was added to a touch pen to increase the stability during screen-based tasks. The idea of adding a brace can be applied to those tasks requiring higher accuracy or continuous freehand without other limb support tasks, such as wall-painting, surgery operation, and other aiming tasks.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Evaluating the coordination dynamics of handwriting.

This study aims to test the hypothesis that handwriting is governed by the dynamics of non-linear coupled oscillators. Accordingly, its first goal is to identify preferred, basic graphic shapes corresponding to spontaneously stable combinations of the two frequency-locked oscillatory x-y components of the trajectories. Six participants were required to produce 26 ellipsoids of varying eccentricities and orientations presented consecutively on a graphic tablet. These shapes corresponded to a systematic manipulation of the relative phase and the relative amplitude of the oscillators by a constant step. Results showed that among those, only eight ellipsoids were produced in a spontaneous and stable fashion. They were characterized by attraction of nearby shapes, and by a higher accuracy and velocity. Alike all periodic motion, graphic skills, hence handwriting, exhibit preferred coordination patterns, which can be ascribed to the non-linear coupling of two oscillators.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Quantitative measurement of handwriting in the assessment of drug-induced parkinsonism.

Monitoring drug-induced side effects is especially important for patients who undergo treatment with antipsychotic medications, as these drugs often produce extrapyramidal side effects (EPS) resulting in movement abnormalities similar to parkinsonism. Scientists have developed several objective laboratory tests to measure and research drug-induced movement disorders, but equipment and tests are complex and costly and have not become accepted in large-scale, multi-site clinical trials. The goals of this study were to test whether a simple handwriting measure can discriminate between individuals with psychotropic-induced parkinsonism, Parkinson's disease, and healthy individuals, and to examine some of the psychometric properties of the measure. We examined pen movement kinematics during cursive writing of a standard word in 13 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD), 10 schizophrenia patients with drug-induced parkinsonism (SZ), and 12 normal healthy control participants (NC). Participants were instructed to write the word "hello" in cursive twice, at three vertical height scales. Software was used for data acquisition and analysis of vertical stroke velocities, velocity scaling, and smoothness. There were four important results from this study: (1) both SZ patients with drug-induced EPS and PD participants exhibited impaired movement velocities and velocity scaling; (2) performance on the velocity scaling measure distinguished drug-induced EPS from normal with 90% accuracy; (3) SZ, but not PD participants displayed abnormalities in movement smoothness; and (4) there was a positive correlation between age and magnitude of the velocity scaling deficit in PD participants. This study demonstrates that kinematic analyses of pen movements during handwriting may be useful in detecting and monitoring subtle changes in motor control related to the adverse effects of psychotropic medications.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Remembering the orientation of newly learned characters depends on the associated writing knowledge: a comparison between handwriting and typing.

Recent data support the idea that movements play a crucial role in letter representation and suggest that handwriting knowledge contributes to visual recognition of letters. If so, using different motor activities while subjects are learning to write should affect their subsequent recognition performances. In order to test this hypothesis, we trained adult participants to write new characters either by copying them or by typing them on a keyboard. After three weeks of training we ran a series of tests requiring visual processing of the characters' orientation. Tests were ran immediately, one week after, and three weeks after the end of the training period. Results showed that when the characters had been learned by typing, they were more frequently confused with their mirror images than when they had been written by hand. This handwriting advantage did not appear immediately, but mostly three weeks after the end of the training. Our results therefore suggest that the stability of the characters' representation in memory depends on the nature of the motor activity produced during learning.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Can non-linear muscle dynamics explain the smoothness of handwriting movements?

The paper addresses the issue of the role of non-linear muscle dynamics in determining the smoothness and invariance of handwriting trajectories. In particular, a specific neuromuscular control model is described that has recently been shown to explain the detailed time course of hand stiffness during arm reaching movements. In the paper the model is applied to more complex handwriting trajectories, with the purpose of verifying to which extent the load compensation capabilities of the periphery can subserve motor equivalence. Simulations show the power of the mechanism for movements of "normal" speed. For quicker movements periphery alone is not enough and a central load compensation action is clearly required.

Handwriting↗