Physical Therapy Pencil Grip- Robert, Kiara, Stella

Kavak, Sermin Tukel, and Gonca Bumin. 2009. “The Effects of Pencil Grip Posture and Different Desk Designs on Handwriting Performance in Children with Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy.” Jornal De Pediatria 85 (4): 346–52. doi:doi:10.2223/JPED.1914.

This is an article in a Brazillian Journal for Pediatrics written by Kavak ST. The article examines the research done on the effects of different pencil grips and desk designs have on children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy and healthy children. The researchers used the Minnesota handwriting assessment to test 26 kids with cerebral palsy and 32 kids that were typically developing. During the study, pencil grip posture was assessed for all the students as 5 different types of desks were used to analyze the handwriting. One of the things that the study found was that the change in desk type did not have any significant change on pencil grip in either group of students. This Journal can help provide insight into the examination of pencil grip posture and handwriting ability and to see how a pencil grip can help create correct pencil grip posture.

 

Schneck, C M. 1991. “Comparison of Pencil-Grip Patterns in First Graders with Good and Poor Writing Skills.” The American Journal Of Occupational Therapy: Official Publication Of The American Occupational Therapy Association 45 (8): 701–6. http://remote.baruch.cuny.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mdc&AN=1877638&site=ehost-live.

This article in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy by CM Schneck discusses a study about the differences in pencil grip patterns between first graders with good and bad writing abilities. The study examined the grip position and hand preference of students with strong and poor writing abilities. The results show that children with poor handwriting ability showed lower grip scores than children with higher handwriting ability. Along with that problem, the children with poor handwriting ability have been shown to have less hand preference. I believe that this article provides valuable information about the usefulness of a pencil grip. It might be possible that having a pencil grip designed for use by one hand will increase the hand preference divide and possibly improve handwriting ability through grip score.

 

Koziatek, Susan M, and Nancy J Powell. 2003. “Pencil Grips, Legibility, and Speed of Fourth-Graders’ Writing in Cursive.” The American Journal Of Occupational Therapy: Official Publication Of The American Occupational Therapy Association57 (3): 284–88. http://remote.baruch.cuny.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mdc&AN=12785666&site=ehost-live.

 

This is another article from the American Journal of Occupational Therapy about the usefulness of pencil grips. The article was written by Susan M Koziatek. The study shows that the purpose of the research was to show how the speed and legibility of Fourth Graders handwriting was affected by the type of pencil grip on their cursive ability. The study used 100 4th graders and tested 4 different pencil grips compared to no pencil grip. The study showed that there is very little speed difference between the 4 pencil grips. However they were all higher than the students with no pencil grip. The most important part of this study is that it compares the four different pencil grips used in the study. For our 3D printing project, we can use this study to observe the usefulness of each of the designs when we are making our own pencil grip.