Development of Individuality in Children's Handwriting

Handwriting of children in early grades is studied from the viewpoint of quantitatively measuring the development of handwriting individuality. Handwriting samples of children, in grades 2-4, writing a paragraph of text in both handprinted and cursive, collected over a period of 3 years, were analyzed using two different approaches: (i) characteristics of the word "and" and (ii) entire paragraphs using an automated system. In the first approach, word characteristics were analyzed using statistical measures. In the second approach, pairs of paragraphs were compared. Both types of analysis, single word and complete writing, led to the same conclusions: (i) handwriting of each child remains relatively similar when handwriting has been just learnt and becomes markedly different from grades 3 to 4 and (ii) handwriting of different children becomes progressively more different from grades 2 to 4. The results provide strong support that handwriting becomes more individualistic with child development.