HANDWRITING, TYPING & TECHNOLOGY

Spina bifida is often considered to be a condition which primarily affects the lower half of the body. However, it is frequently associated with hydrocephalus which may affect a child's ability to concentrate and learn. Also, through compression and stretching of the lower lobes of the brain (Arnold Chiari Malformation), coordination and dexterity of the arms and hands may be affected.

This is usually not apparent at birth, and real difficulties may not arise until a child is of a pre-school age, or in fact may not arise at all.

Initially, there may be difficulties with small toys like Lego and doing up buttons and zips. The child may not be keen to sit and play with fine motor toys or experiment with drawing or cutting activities. This kind of aversion to fine motor activity may indicate not only a dislike for but also a difficulty in handwriting later on at school.

Handwriting, however, is much more than a fine motor activity and other factors need to be considered when looking at this skill development. These include:

	VISUAL ACUITY    (How clearly the child can see)
	VISUAL MOTOR INTEGRATION (eye hand coordination)
	SEATING POSTURE
	WRITING TECHNIQUE (pencil grasp and pressure)
	ESTABLISHMENT OF HAND DOMINANCE
	INTEREST AND MOTIVATION

It is important to remember that the ultimate aim is for writing to be functionally useful both for the work required in primary school and more importantly for the volume of work required in high school, and ultimately as a daily skill in adult life.

If it is determined that handwriting is not functional then an alternative means of written expression may need to be considered. It is reasonable, though, to allow the child more time to develop the basic skills of handwriting before any recommendation for a keyboard is made.

Primarily, lightweight electronic typewriters are used to extend a child's output with increased speed and reduced effort. They should not be used as a full time alternative to handwriting, but only for tapping into a child's creative expressive language, or to produce written work where writing is not essential to the task e.g. Maths.

Typewriters are also still preferable as an initial tool for the training of keyboard skills, even in this day of computers, because:

They can be reserved for the child who then does not have to wait for access

	Immediate input and output is provided
	They are lightweight and portable
	They are more affordable for families to purchase
	They have limited functions and are therefore easier for the child to understand