A new and very small study shows that kids with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to have worse handwriting than their non-ASD peers.
Of 14 kids with ASD and 14 without who were asked to complete a standardized handwriting test, those with ASD specifically had trouble forming letter shapes correctly. Otherwise their handwriting was fine. They spaced and aligned letters correctly and -- perhaps because the test dictated the size of the letters -- made them the right size.
The researchers (from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the
Kennedy Krieger Institute, both in Baltimore) speculate that the handwriting deficit likely stems from the poor fine-motor skills associated with ASD.
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“Since the implementation of the "Back to Sleep" campaign, therapists are seeing increasing numbers of kindergarten-aged children who are unable to hold a pencil.”
ReplyDeleteSusan Syron, Pediatric Physical Therapist
“There are indications of a rapidly growing population of infants who show developmental abnormalities as a result of prolonged exposure to the supine position.”
Dr. Ralph Pelligra regarding the impact of the Back to Sleep Campaign
As it turns out, when the primarily back and side sleeping ALSPAC babies were compared to the primarily stomach sleeping Colorado babies used to develop the DDST the researchers obtained these results: 68% of the ALSPAC infants had abnormal scores at 6 months of age compared to the stomach sleeping DDST Colorado infants and 57% of the ALSPAC infants had abnormal scores at 18 months compared to the original stomach sleeping DDST Colorado infants.
Summary of Alan Emond letter to BMJ in 2005 regarding ALSPAC data and a research project unrelated to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.