Asperger's and Good Handwriting

Post Reply New Topic

The more people I've met with Asperger's, the more I realize that all of them have something in common: bad handwriting. This is one thing I cannot identify with, though. So I'm just wondering, is it possible to have developed my handwriting through hard work?

I have been taught to write before I entered school. In Grade 1, we were graded on the neatness of our writing. As I've been always very serious about my marks, in addition to being a huge perfectionist, I always tried to write very slowly and dilligently. In Grade 2, my handwriting was chosen to be the best among my classmates. But I always wrote slowly. Now that I write fast, my writing isn't the neatest, but it's average. I write very big and on random inclines. It was never consistent; a person would look at my handwriting and not recognize it because it looks different on different days. However, it's legible, and I write at a somewhat slow but generally acceptable speed.

I am very poor at anything else involving fine motor skills. I'm a relatively slow typer - I pretty much hunt and peck, but it has also improved. Playing piano may have also played a part in improving my fine motor skills.

Update: I've decided to upload samples of my handwriting.
Here's my standard handwriting on a test:


My neatest cursive ever:


My very neat printing:

Last edited by MathGirl on 06 Jul 2010, 10:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I have poor handwriting skills and it makes my wrist sore so I try to avoid it as much as I can. I'm rather fast at typing on the keyboard tough. I write extremely small, most people have to squint to see what I write. My writing is legible most of the time, but I also write and print extremely light, I just don't put enough pressure on the pencil to get a nice dark trace.

I've read a little bit about dysgraphia, the fancy name for the condition some people have. Also presents as difficulty spacing words properly on a page. In addition to clumsy handwriting you might see all the sentences crowded to the right hand margin.

I interviewed for a job once and there was space on the application with a question...an obvious attempt to get a handwriting sample for graphanalysis. I flunked big time. Dawn Prince-Hughes mentions this in her book, the concept of dysgraphia.

My handwriting is big and easy to read, but I still can't write cursive. I can't sign and it sometimes brings me problems.
I write slower than average person, but it looks pretty, I mean it's all in order and neat. No chaos in my notebooks.

I've read a little bit about dysgraphia, the fancy name for the condition some people have. Also presents as difficulty spacing words properly on a page. In addition to clumsy handwriting you might see all the sentences crowded to the right hand margin.

I interviewed for a job once and there was space on the application with a question...an obvious attempt to get a handwriting sample for graphanalysis. I flunked big time. Dawn Prince-Hughes mentions this in her book, the concept of dysgraphia.

My hand writing is terrible almost illegible sometimes, and my hands hurt and cramp up as I write. I also hold my pencil improperly and I refuse to change my grip because I'm a really good drawer. I can't draw when I hold it differently.

I think that I have pretty good hand writing. I used to practice writing really small because I had a minor obsession with mechanical pencils. I found one with .3mm lead but, it was hard to write with because I have a heavy hand.

If you have good handwriting, then it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to be an aspie.

j/k

My handwriting is terrible. Growing up, my mom was convinced I couldn't read my own writing. Actually, I could make it out quite easily. If I force myself to slow down, I don't do so bad. Now I type almost exclusively. Sometimes if I'm brainstorming or writing down song lyrics or ideas, I'll use paper and pen/pencil simply because there's just something about that contact with paper, scratching things out, re-writing things, and so on that makes the creative process a little more "real." But once an idea has been developed, I immediately go to the computer and type it in Word or something.

I used to try writing music out by hand, also, and for most of my undergraduate college years, most of my music theory assignments and my first little compositions were all hand-written. But because of the difficulty of it, I started using music notation software as soon as I could get a working laptop I could afford. Now I'm NEVER without my laptop (MacBook Pro).

Very recently, like in the last month, I've returned to writing music the way I used to right before college: Recording the music first and transcribing it last. Ideas come too fast to be concerned about what kind of note comes here or what chord I want to play there, and that explains why so many years have been wasted with very little musical output. Having the best tools for the job is the single best way to get things done correctly and quickly, so now I'm working more in a workstation environment rather than staring at a blank screen all day.

Now, I know you aren't talking about writing music, just handwriting. The best thing I can think of if you need to organize ideas and write them down is figure out some way to dictate what you want to write on a voice recorder. Ideas seem to come as quickly as you can speak them. Writing from the get-go just takes too much time.

Actually, I almost forgot something:

At one point I took up calligraphy and developed a very nice Old English/Block-letter hand. I can still do it, too, though my pens are long lost. I used to do my high school term papers on cotton paper, and they were perfect EVERY TIME!! !

My writing now is OK - I tend to use mostly print, though and not cursive. It wasn't always this way - I had pretty bad penmanship (cursive) as a child. In 6th grade, my English teacher took it upon herself to go old school on me with cursive penmanship. My sub par penmanship skills became her special project for the year. I also had an odd grip - she hounded me EVERY day in class if she saw me writing that way and wouldn't leave me alone until I used the tripod grip. I also had daily penmanship homework (yes, like you'd give to a 3rd grader) that I was required to do. My penmanship eventually improved a bit (enough to appease her anyway), and I do now have a "proper" tripod grip when I write.

My daughter who is 8 has OK printing - it's not great, but it is legible. She also has what they call a "quadrapod" grip - and no amount of triangular pencils and different grips have convinced her to change it. They also tried using a slant board to help with the direction of the letters - she refused to use it. The other thing that I have noticed is that she tends to make her letters from the bottom up, rather than from the top down - and, for letters with circles, she tends to make the circular part by going round more than once (as she seems to start on the wrong side of the circle, if you can visualize that). She also has a tendancy to use heavy pressure when printing.

I'd like to learn Kurrentschrift, but I don't know if it'd be practical.

Well, you write like THIS????:


I knew someone who caould write like this, but I find it hardcore.

Last edited by Valoyossa on 06 Jul 2010, 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have very good handwriting and I don't have to put much conscious effort into it, which is weird because (with the exception of typing and drawing) my other fine motor skills are not so good. It's actually my NT sister who has the handwriting problems, oddly enough. My writing is very neat and easy to read. When I'm using a pencil I tend to write lightly, though, which is a problem for some people.

I think it makes sense that you developed good handwriting through practice. It reminds me of what happened with a girl I babysit. She used to have poor handwriting, so her teacher gave her some handwritten sentences that she had to carefully copy. Now her handwriting is much better, but she still has to write slowly for it to look good.

Dysgraphia.

I've read some on dysgraphia and am mostly convinced that I've got it. Thankfully, with today's technology, I can type up anything I want. If I absolutely must write, I can do it, but for it to be acceptable I have to concentrate and work at it, so the process is tiring and slower than most people. I'm actually quite happy with my hand writing when I work at it.

Depends on what you mean by handwriting. My cursive (such as it is) looks like an EEG or the printout of a polygraph test. Its been so long since I did it on a regular basis, I can't even remember how to form some of the letters correctly. But in high school, it was okay.

I gave up cursive handwriting long ago in lieu of comic book style printing and my printing is as neat as can be. I will say, though, I hate having to create tattoos with those loopy, flowing cursive letters, I just do not have the knack - I can follow a stencil no prob, but I always feel it looks kind of klunky and heavyhanded if I create it from scratch. I just don't have the feminine touch it takes to make that sort of design look graceful.

But Doctors have notoriously bad handwriting, too and most of them don't have AS.

He was joking.