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14th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (IFSSH), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT)

17.06. - 21.06.2019, Berlin

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Building bridges: Can a handtherapeutic test be an effective tool for measuring the development of writing skills for children?

Meeting Abstract

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  • presenting/speaker Leonie Herinckx - Hand and Wristcentre de Ergo Experts, Utrecht-Zeist Tiel, Zeist, Netherlands
  • Eleonore Sleegers - Hand and Wristcentre de Ergo Experts, Utrecht-Zeist Tiel, Zeist, Netherlands

International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand. International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy. 14th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (IFSSH), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT). Berlin, 17.-21.06.2019. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2020. DocIFSHT19-1251

doi: 10.3205/19ifssh1528, urn:nbn:de:0183-19ifssh15288

Published: February 6, 2020

© 2020 Herinckx et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Outline

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It is a well-known fact that fine motor skills are an essential item for the quality of handwriting. In hand therapy the 9 hole peg test (9HPT) is often used to measure the fine motor skills but it has never been investigated, if this handtherapy assessment, can be used to evaluate writing skills for children.

Materials and Methods: A group of 8 children, whom participate in regular education, in grade 4 and 5, were tested for their writing skills with the SOS2 and fine motor skills with the 9HPT. After 6 and 12 weeks the children were retested.

Results: At this moment the study is still in progress. Hypothesis: The results of the tests have been processed by a research assistant. All 8 children were included in the study and the examinations were taken at the fixed measuring moments. For all children the results on both tests showed improvement over time. The 9HPT showed relatively faster improvements compared with the SOS2.

Conclusions: The final conclusion is that the 9HPT test can be a useful tool to evaluate writing skills earlier in time.