Keyboarding and Handwriting Skill Comparison

By Teresa Vance OTR/L

SKILL HANDWRITING KEYBOARDING

Postural control is defined as the Core strength serves as a base for Core strength serves as a base for
act of maintaining, achieving or dexterity needed dexterity needed
restoring a state of balance during
any posture or activity. Postural
control strategies may be either
predictive or reactive, and may
involve either a fixed-support or a
change-in-support response.--this is
needed for fine motor control

Fine motor skills are small
movements — such as picking up
small objects and holding a pencil —
that use the small muscles of the
fingers, toes, wrists, lips, and
tongue.
Isolated finger control and Isolated finger control in both
established dominance(R versus L hands
differences in instruction)
Grip strength

Bilateral coordination is the ability Lead assist pattern for handwriting Both hands working at the same
to use both sides of the body at the time for touch typing
same time. in a controlled and
organized manner. This can mean
using both sides to do the. same
thing or using alternating
movements

Eye-hand coordination is the Needed to form letters-More Needed to strike keys

coordinated control of eye complex
movement with hand movement,
and the processing of visual input to
guide reaching and grasping along
with the use of proprioception of the
hands to guide the eyes.

Proprioception is a sense or
perception, usually at a
subconscious level, of the
movements and position of the body
and especially its limbs, independent
of vision
Knowing where your hand is in
relation to the tool
Writing pressure while gripping a
pencil more complex
Knowing where your hand is in
relation to the tool
Depressing keys-- Touch Typing
-no vision needed for the keys

Motor planning is the ability to
conceive, plan, and carry out a
skilled, non-habitual motor act in
the correct sequence from beginning
to end
Comes into play in the learning Comes into play in the learning
process process
Remember all the strokes to form a Remember where keys are located
letter
Visual motor control is the ability to
coordinate visual information with
motor output, and visual perception
is the ability to recognize, recall,
discriminate and make sense of
what we see.
Sequencing is the following of one
thing after another a continuous
connected series
Letter recognition is the ability to
recognise and name the letters of
the alphabet. It includes recognising
and recalling the shapes of letters,
identifying lower and upper case
letters, and recognising letters in
isolation and within printed words
even when they appear in different
fonts and sizes.
Spelling is the process or activity of
writing or naming the letters of a
word
Orthographic-motor integration
refers to the way in which
orthographic (The art of writing
words with the proper letters,
according to accepted usage;
correct spelling. Knowledge is
integrated with fine-motor demands
Spatial Relations/Position in
Space
forming letters properly between
lines
Letter recognition
Need to know top top bottom -right
to left order is done by the writer
Must write in a given space or on a
line and size letters appropriately
More complex in handwriting- we
must connected letter strokes in
order to form a letters THEN
We must sequence letters to form
words and then words to form
sentences etc
More complex recognition--ability to
visualize letter to form it
Need the ability to remember
spelling and notice when word is
misspelled-- Correct with and eraser
Interventions to improve children's
orthographic-motor integration
result in improved written text
(Jones & Christensen, 1999).
AUTOMATICITY results in less
cognitive load needed during
writing production resulting in
higher level composition creation
Spatial Relations/Position in
Space
Letter recognition
Top to bottom --Right to left order is
done by the word processor Letter
sizing and orientation and also
done automatically
Need position in space concepts
for keyboarding instruction
We must sequence letters to form
words and then words to form
sentences ect
Recognize letters printed on the
keyboard
Need the ability to remember
spelling and notice when word is
misspelled-- Correct with
SPELLCHECK-- or use word
prediction
It is suggested that developing
proficiency in orthographic-motor
integration related to typing allows
writers to employ their cognitive
resources more flexibly when
working on a computer, so that
they can devote attention to
higher-order processes involved in
ideation, syntactic and semantic
monitoring and pragmatic
awareness
Christensen CA.2004
 AUTOMATICITY results in less
cognitive load needed during
writing production resulting in
higher level composition
creation

Grammar is the whole system and Need to know the rules of Need to know the rules of
structure of a language or of grammar--sentence structure, etc. grammar-- There are word
languages in general processing tools to help

Legibility More room for variables Legible