Effects of Relaxation Training upon Handwriting Quality

Abstract

It was theorized that brain-injured children who have poor handwriting are in fact trying too hard to write and using too much energy in the process. An audio-taped relaxation program was devised and presented to 32 boys who were in special classes for minimally brain-injured children. An equal number of randomly selected age mates were chosen as controls. Relaxation training was administered to the experimental group three days a week for four weeks. Results indicated that: (1) the program was effective in enhancing the quality of handwriting; (2) there was transfer effect to nonexperimental situations; (3) the changes were stable over time; and (4) there was very high interjudge reliability of handwriting quality.