Assessment of dysgraphia in young school children

Abstract

Introduction. Writing is a complex human ability and also a very complex form of language performance. The act of writing involves knowledge and skills of proper graphic design of letters. Disruption in acquiring writing skills means the term dysgraphia. Symptoms of dysgraphia are bad formatting letters, mixing letters, illegible handwriting and incorrect font size, unfinished and omitted words. Writing can be accessed through the fine motor and linguistic aspects. The focus of this study was to determine the fine motor aspects of writing. Our goal was to determine the occurrence of dysgraphia in young school children, based on the reviews of the maturity and the quality of handwriting. Methods. The evaluation of writing was performed by the scale for the assessment of the maturity of the manuscript and assessment scales handwriting dysgraphia. The survey covered 234 students of third and fourth grade of Sveti Sava Primary School and Veselin Masleša Primary School in Foča and 44 students who attend these schools branches in villages Miljevina and Brod. Handwriting samples were analyzed in three modalities (dictation, transcript, writing independently). On the basis of the obtained data maturity and quality of the manuscript were estimated. In the evaluation of the quality, manuscripts were classified into four categories: harmonious, discordant/hard to read, dysgraphic and extremely dysgraphic manuscript. Results. The results showed that 14.7 % of respondents had an infantile manuscript. Dysgraphia was identified in 12.2 % of respondents, while 8.3 % had a discordant manuscript. It was shown that dysgraphia was significantly more evident in boys than in girls. At the same time a significantly higher percentage of dysgraphia was established in respondents in rural than in urban areas. Conclusion. The research showed a significant influence of environment and gender on the occurrence of dysgraphia in young school children. The comparison of obtained results with other authors indicated an increasing number of developmental dysgraphia.

Uvod. Pisanje predstavlja kompleksnu ljudsku sposobnost i ujedno nasjloženiji oblik jezičke delatnosti. Sam čin pisanja obuhvata znanje i veštinu pravilnog grafičkog oblikovanja slova. Poremećaj u sticanju sposobnosti pisanja označava se terminom disgrafija. Osnovni simptomi disgrafije su loše oblikovana slova, nečitak rukopis, pogrešna veličina slova, nedovršene reči, izostavljene reči, izlomljeni redovi. Pisanje se može procenjivati sa grafomotornog i lingvističkog aspekta. U fokusu ove studije jeste procena pisanja sa grafomotornog aspekta. Cilj NAM je bio da na osnovu ocene zrelosti i kvaliteta rukopisa utvrdimo pojavu disgrafije kod dece mlađeg školskog uzrasta. Metode. Procena pisanja izvršena je pomoću: Skale za procenu zrelosti rukopisa i Skale za procenu disgrafičnosti rukopisa. Istraživanjem su obuhvaćena 234 učenika trećeg i četvrtog razreda osnovnih škola "Sveti Sava" i "Veselin Masleša" u Foči i 44 učenika koja pohađaju ogranke ovih škola u naseljima Miljevina i Brod. Analizirani su uzorci rukopisa u tri modaliteta (diktat, prepis, samostalno pisanje). Na osnovu dobijenih podataka ocenjivani su zrelost i kvalitet rukopisa. Kod ocene kvaliteta, rukopisi su svrstani u četiri kategorije: skladan, neskladan/teško čitljiv, disgrafičan i izrazito disgrafičan rukopis. Rezultati. Dobijeni rezultati su pokazali da 14,7% ispitanika ima infantilan rukopis. Disgrafija je identifikovana kod 12,2% ispitanika, dok je 8,3% ispitanika imalo neskladan rukopis. Pokazano je da se disgrafija značajno više ispoljava kod dečaka nego kod devojčica. Istovremeno je utvrđen značajno veći procenat disgrafija kod ispitanika ruralne nego urbane sredine. Zaključak.Ispitivanje je pokazalo značajan uticaj sredine i pola na pojavu disgrafije kod dece mlađeg školskog uzrasta. Poređenje dobijenih rezultata sa rezultatima drugih autora ukazuje da se poslednjih godina povećao broj razvojnih disgrafija.