COMPUTERIZED HANDWRITING INSTRUCTION WITH SEVERELY MENTALLY-HANDICAPPED ADULTS

The effectiveness of computerized handwriting instruction incorporatin g modelling of the target letter, corrective feedback and reinforcemen t contingent upon letter accuracy was examined with severely mentally retarded adults. Assisted by faded prompts on a sheet of paper, subjec ts wrote the letter 'q' while their handwriting patterns were detected by a digitized graphics tablet linked to a computer. Computerized ins truction was introduced for six subjects (mean mental age=3 years, 10 months) according to a multiple-baseline-across-subjects design. Instr uction produced significant improvements in letter quality which were not simply due to the effects of practice. Subjects who had extended p ractice before being introduced to the computer were less responsive t o the information provided by the computer and did not attain the leve ls of performance accuracy achieved by other subjects.