An Investigation Into Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-Diagnosed Elementary Students’ Cursive Handwriting Skills

Abstract

Using a general survey model, this descriptive and quantitative study aims to describe the writing skills of primary school students who have been diagnosed with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]. The study sample consisted of 230 primary school students who had been diagnosed with ADHD; their test scores were analysed. Our study attempts to determine whether the sub-factors legibility, fluency, and passing the writing on the surface of the paper differed according to medicine consumption, grade level, and gender; we also try to identify problems in these students’ cursive handwriting. Using a rubric developed by the researchers, it was found that the scores ADHD-diagnosed students received in legibility and fluency depended on whether they had taken their medicine and on their grade level; however, there were no significant differences in passing the writing on the surface of the paper. On the basis of gender, there were significant differences in the sub-factors legibility, fluency, and passing the writing on the surface of the paper: female students scored higher. In addition to that on examining students’ note-books in terms of shaping the letters, such mistakes as failure to make the connections between letters, inadequate pencil pressure, failure to follow the lines, tendency to use manuscript handwriting and problems of fatigue were found at all grade levels.