George 'Shore Assessment'

Hi - this blurb is taken from Georges Assignment. It is mostly the conclusion about the usefulness of using the SHORE Handwriting Screening for early development (Shore, 2003)


Referrals from the MOH (Paediatricians etc.) highlight delays in the developmental components of handwriting i.e. fine motor skills, motor planning difficulties, muscle tone, bilateral integration etc..

In order to manage a large number of referrals for handwriting difficulties or delayed pre-writing skills, a handwriting screen is used initially. One of the handwriting screening tools available to the OT in the CDT is the SHORE Handwriting Screening for Early Handwriting Development (SHS), published by Leanne Shore in 2003.

The purpose of this screen is to identify pre-writing and handwriting difficulties in children 3-9 years of age. It prompts identifications of difficulties in the underlying components of handwriting including postural control, hand control, letter/number formation, pre-writing skills and bilateral skills. It allows the examiner to identify whether or not further assessments are necessary and whether or not intervention or adaptations are required.

Conclusion
The purpose of this assignment was to investigate the validity/effectiveness of the SHS as a screening tool for early handwriting development, to identify the need for further assessment, and to identify intervention and/or adaptations required following the screen.

Roger et al., (2003) noted that, as in the case of the SHS, no one assessment addresses all areas of skills, the clinician must determine the missing task and environmental contexts in order to identify the battery of assessments and observations needed in a comprehensive evaluation of motor and functional skills.

As discussed in the assignment, the SHS demonstrates strengths as a screening tool for early handwriting development including the following:
• It uses tasks used by other standardised assessments like the MHT, ETCH, VMI, TOLH, DRHP and CHES.
• The developmental handwriting milestones used in the SHS is supported by over 30 research articles by researchers of handwriting development including Amundson, Weil, Reisman etc.
• Although the visual samples of typical handwriting development offered in the manual, were obtained from typically developing children in the USA, the sample group was diverse with males and females from several racial orientations. Therefore representing some aspect of the children seen by the OT’s in the CDT.
• The SHS score sheet is easy to follow, quick to administer and score. It provides useful information to guide further assessment and intervention required following the screen.
• The SHS displays elements of both the most commonly used methods of evaluation of handwriting, as described by Rosenblum, Weiss and Parush, 2003, namely, a global-holistic evaluation and an analytical evaluation.
• The SHS evaluates components of handwriting researched and found to have an influence on handwriting like postural control, copying, in-hand manipulation and pencil grip.
• As discussed, the SHS facilitates the use of the three most well recognised OT approaches noted by Ideishi, (2003) using a guided score sheet including contextual approach, bottom-up approach and is supported by the professions move towards being more top-down focused in using functional tasks used by children.
• The SHS demonstrates limitations as a handwriting assessment tool in light of the following:
• It is an American based assessment and therefore references are mostly related to USA studies and age norms based on typically developing children in the USA.
• It is not a standardised test therefore it does not provide objective measures and quantitative scores; makes monitoring a child’s progress more difficult, impair clear communication with other professionals and cannot be used successfully for research to advance the field.
• It does not incorporate the link between understanding print (awareness of letters) and ability to write strongly or clearly as it does not prompt reading of copied stimuli – it only prompts the examiner to mark if the child responds spontaneously.

• A tasks/component not used in SHS is writing from memory, alphabet writing and composition.
In light of the above it can be concluded that at the least, SHS is a valid screen for early handwriting assessment. It can be used effectively to identify possible handwriting difficulties and it indicates the need for further assessment if required. It guides the examiner to identify intervention and/or adaptations required following the screen.
It is recommended that in combination with SHS, further emphasis should be made on assessing the relationship of handwriting and understanding print.