The concurrent validity and reliability of the Prewriting Assessment.

Area of Science:

• Occupational therapy
• Developmental psychology
• Educational assessment

Background:

• Handwriting is crucial for classroom success, with prewriting pattern mastery being a key developmental stage.
• Limited tools currently exist for evaluating prewriting abilities in young children.
• The Prewriting Assessment (PWA) was developed to address this need, involving children copying prewriting patterns.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the psychometric properties of the Prewriting Assessment (PWA).
• To establish the reliability and validity of the PWA for assessing prewriting skills in 4- to 5-year-old children.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study design was employed with 54 typically developing 4- to 5-year-olds.
• Participants completed the PWA and the Visual Motor Integration subtest of the Developmental Test of Visual Perception (Third Edition).
• Test-retest, intra-rater, and inter-rater reliability were assessed, alongside internal consistency and concurrent criterion validity.

Main Results:

• The PWA demonstrated strong reliability: test-retest (0.82), inter-rater (0.92), and intra-rater (0.97).
• Concurrent criterion validity was supported by moderate to strong correlations with the DTVP-3 Visual Motor Integration subtest.
• Internal consistency of the PWA items was excellent (Cronbach's alpha = 0.84-0.96).

Conclusions:

• The Prewriting Assessment (PWA) possesses established reliability and concurrent criterion validity for children aged 4-5 years.
• The PWA provides a valuable tool for occupational therapists and teachers to evaluate prewriting abilities.
• Further research is recommended to explore the predictive validity of the PWA.