Characterization of Brazilians Students with Dyslexia in Handwriting Proficiency Screening Questionnaire and Handwriting Scale

Despite technological progress, handwriting still constitutes an important activity among school aged students and is required for during 30%-60% of the school day. The aim of this study was to characterize Brazilians students with developmental dyslexia in handwriting proficiency screening questionnaire and handwriting scale: A total of 51 students with developmental dyslexia, from both genders, from 3rd to 5th grade of Elementary School. As procedure, all students’ teachers received and responded the handwriting proficiency screening questionnaire (HPSQ), translated to Brazilian Portuguese Language which is scored on a five Likert scale ranging from 0—“Never” to 4—“Always”, and a final score is summed. The questionnaire’s reliability and validity have been established and a sum of 14 was determined as the cut of score for handwriting deficiency. The Dysgraphia scale ranged from 0 to 17 points, being considered as having a dysgraphia pattern the student that obtained a grade equal to or greater than 8.5 points. Regarding HPSQ, 26 (50.9%) of dyslexic’s students scored above 14 points, being characterized to have a handwriting deficiency. Among the questions, most of the answers given by teachers was referring to “rarely”, which suggest that they don’t have perception of the handwriting difficulties of these students. Regarding the handwriting scale, 43 students (84.3%) met criteria for dysgraphia. Also, a statistical analysis was carried out, indicating that there was statistical difference between each question with the classification of dysgraphia. These results point to the necessity of orientation to teachers on the quality of writing students with dyslexia.