HANDWRITING PERFORMANCE IN YOUNGER AND OLDER ADULTS - AGE, FAMILIARITY, AND PRACTICE EFFECTS

The main goals of 2 experiments on the aging of handwriting skills wer e to investigate (a) age differences in speed of handwriting performan ce, (b) effects of task familiarity on age differences in performance, and (c) effects of practice on age differences in performance. Younge r adults performed reliably faster than older adults on all tasks. An Age x Familiarity interaction in both experiments indicated that age d ifferences were magnified for unfamiliar but attenuated for familiar t asks. In the second experiment, an Age x Trial interaction revealed th at older adults improved at a faster rate than younger adults. Regress ions with initial trial data indicated that the older were slower than the younger adults by a factor of about 1.6. With practice, however, this slowing factor was only 1.02. The results suggest that familiarit y and practice play a role in speed of handwriting.