Impact of a Cognitive-Motor Training on Legibility and Speed of Handwriting in Children with ADHD

Introduction: Studies employing cognitive-musical training and the verbal working memory-balance program have demonstrated improvements in various linguistic and non-linguistic outcomes for children with dyslexia. Despite these findings, there is a notable gap in the literature regarding the impact of cognitive-motor interventions on handwriting performance in children with ADHD.
Objective: This study aims to examine how a cognitive-motor intervention affects the legibility and speed of handwriting in children with ADHD.
Methods: This research utilized a semi-experimental design featuring a practical application, incorporating a pre-test and post-test methodology along with a control group. After a thorough screening process, 40 children diagnosed with ADHD were chosen as participants and randomly assigned to either the intervention or control group in equal numbers. The intervention group participated in a cognitive-motor program twice weekly over an eight-week period. The Handwriting Assessment Tool was employed to evaluate both the legibility and speed of handwriting, with data analysis conducted using ANCOVA.
Results: The findings indicate significant differences between the intervention or control groups in handwriting characteristics, including formation (F=9.751, P<0.001), alignment (F=8.639, P<0.001), size (F=7.938, P<0.001), and speed (F=12.527, P<0.001). However, there was no significant differences between groups regarding space and slant dimensions of legibility of handwriting (P>0.05).
Conclusion: Cognitive-motor exercises demonstrated in this study prove to be an effective strategy for enhancing graphomotor skills, particularly handwriting, among primary school students, including those with special needs like ADHD. This approach is not only straightforward to implement but also requires minimal adjustments to existing educational curricula.