The impact of spatio-temporal constraints on cursive letter handwriting in children

The study assessed the impact of spatial and temporal constraints on handwriting movements in young children. One hundred children of 5–7 years of age of both genders were given the task of copying isolated cursive letters under four conditions: normal, with temporal, spatial, or spatio-temporal constraints. The results showed that imposing spatio-temporal constraints on handwriting movements affected 5-year-olds' performance, at least for a subset of letters (those with the simplest shapes). The constraints probably enabled young children to free themselves from the models and helped them to better program their movements.