The quality of handwriting of elementary school students II: A comparison between boys and girls

Abstract

To study and investigate the performance of the quality of handwriting of elementary school students, allows professionals, both in educational and clinical environment, the knowledge of the development of writing as well as its readability. From the context of analyzing genders, the purpose of this study was: (1) To verify if there are differences between the genders, concerning the evaluation of the quality of the written expression of primary school students II; (2) To verify if there is gender prevalence regarding the diagnosis of dysgraphia. A total of 96 students of both genders, aged 11 to 14 years and 11 months, enrolled from the sixth to the ninth grade of elementary school II of a public school, took part in this study. The students were divided according to their respective school grades. Data collection was performed on a single day, inside the room, in the presence of the teacher and the researcher, not exceeding 20 minutes of activity. As procedure, the Dysgraphia Scale was used. The results presented in this study showed that male students tend to present greater difficulties regarding calligraphy, when compared to female students of elementary school II. Although no statistically significant difference was found for dysgraphia, it was possible to identify only male students with this diagnosis.