Monday, June 2, 2008

Handwriting a lost art


Sunday, June 1, 2008
Handwriting a lost art

Digital communication undermining handwriting skills

MODERN LIVING

By Dan Levy SPECIAL TO THE TELEGRAM & GAZETTE

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Phyllis B. Samara, who teaches occupational therapy at Quinsigamond Community College, writes comments on student papers in a neat, graceful script. (T&G Staff Photos / CHRISTINE PETERSON)
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Occupational therapy teacher Phyllis B. Samara shows an example of her handwriting.
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Mr. Phillippou
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When Phyllis B. Samara handed back the graded exams to students in her occupational therapy class at Quinsigamond Community College, the pages were filled with comments penned in neat, graceful script.

But soon after, one of her 20-year-old students notified Ms. Samara of a problem: She couldn’t decipher a word.

While some professors’ scrawl can be virtually impossible to decode, Ms. Samara’s penmanship was not to blame. Her longhand, honed through years of training as an occupational therapist, was executed with a clinician’s precision.

The student, Ms. Samara suggested, simply belonged to a generation for whom cursive writing was as arcane as Latin grammar.

“If you can’t write it,” Ms. Samara explained, “you can’t read it.”

The disappearance of longhand is only one chapter of the larger story of the proliferation of digital tools such as computers and PDAs.

Professions such as medicine and law, and businesses such as food service, are conducting fewer tasks with pen and paper. In response, many elementary schools are de-emphasizing handwriting proficiency in favor of computer skills.

To some experts, this is a disturbing trend that could have serious consequences. To others, it is an inevitable result of technological evolution.

John Wadsworth, a Worcester-based architect, said that while he still does most of his drawing by pencil, “virtually none” of his other business activities are conducted by hand.

“Basically just signatures,” Mr. Wadsworth said.

In one of Worcester’s upscale restaurants, handwriting serves only a transient purpose. Although servers still jot down their customers’ orders the old-fashioned way, they enter the information into electronic tills, so the kitchen staff never has a chance to admire or admonish their lettering.

“Outside of some spelling issues, it’s usually not an issue,” said David Simmons, the manager of Via, on Shrewsbury Street.

In the corporate world, interactions have become so fast-paced and digitized that co-workers rarely see one another’s handwriting. Sean P. Dowling, a corporate recruiter at Robert Half International, which has an office in Westboro, said that even phone messages are delivered through e-mail rather than Post-It Notes these days.

“I can’t tell you the last time we had a request where a client was really focused on handwriting,” said Mr. Dowling, who manages Robert Half’s Boston branch. “It’s not a qualification that comes up.”

Mr. Dowling surmised that the scarcity of the written word has also added to its power. He said he often advises job candidates to follow up their interviews with personalized messages.

“A handwritten note goes a lot further these days than anything else,” he said. “I tell candidates it’s an excellent way to differentiate yourself.”

To Peggy L. Morris, handwriting is more than a throwback, or an esoteric way to stand out from the pack. Ms. Morris is an occupational therapist and special educator in the Sudbury public schools. She also works as a trainer for Handwriting Without Tears, a developmentally based handwriting curriculum that is taught in elementary and high schools across the country.

Crowded out by keyboarding, handwriting instruction “has really gone by the wayside,” according to Ms. Morris. The result: a generation of sloppy handwriters.

“I think (school) districts are really understanding they can’t let that go much longer,” Ms. Morris said. “So district by district, school by school, they’re putting handwriting curriculums back in.”

As Ms. Morris points out, technology is expensive. The school system is a long way from providing each child with a laptop, so, at least through high school, students are still expected to take notes and write exams by hand.

“Handwriting is the way kids demonstrate their knowledge most often right now,” Ms. Morris said. “And it’s messy. It’s illegible. And it’s not because kids are having other kinds of issues like fine motor issues, or any kind of disability. It’s that they were never instructed properly.”

The fear is that if rote letter formation is not ingrained at an early age — achieving what occupational therapists call “automaticity” — older students may end up spending too much mental energy on how, rather than what, to write.

The incentive for handwriting instruction was bolstered in March 2005 when an essay section was added to the SATs. Although students are not scored on handwriting, they can flunk the section if their writing is completely illegible, according to Kristen E. Campbell, the national director of college prep programs for Kaplan Inc.

For some, messy handwriting is more than just frustrating: It’s a matter of life and death. Several doctors have been successfully sued for writing prescriptions so illegible that a pharmacist fatally administered the wrong medicine or dose.

Technology has transformed the profession that put bad handwriting on the map. Most doctor’s offices now send prescriptions electronically, minimizing the potential for such costly mistakes.

At Fallon Clinic in Worcester, all health records are entered and stored electronically. Instead of scribbling notes as they treat patients, doctors type notes directly into a computer. Soon all doctors will do so.

This year a state Senate bill called for hospitals and community health centers to switch to electronic health records by 2015.

For the time being, however, some pharmacists report continued frustration with doctor’s scrawl. Thomas C. Phillippou, the pharmacy manager at Walgreens in Shrewsbury, said he faces illegible prescriptions more frequently than ever.

“It happens on a daily basis at the drugstore,” Mr. Phillippou said.

“The people that are here have enough experience and ability to decipher the prescription, but there are instances where we don’t have the certainty we require to put the order through.”

That means Mr. Phillippou and his staff spend significant chunks of their days on the phone, double-checking doses and, in some cases, patients’ names.

“We have to go through the same phone maze as patients and everyone else,” Mr. Phillippou said.

There are even a number of adults considering Handwriting Without Tears to brush up on their pen strokes. Susan M. Biagini, an occupational therapist who works in the Needham public schools, was recently approached by a legal assistant whose boss was struggling to read her notes.

“She was using a print version, so I switched her to cursive,” Ms. Biagini said. “This way she wasn’t un-learning old habits, but learning something brand-new.”

The Handwriting Without Tears promise is that it only takes 12 weeks of hard work for students to see significant improvements. For adults, though, this can be a pricey venture.

One half-hour session costs approximately $100 to $250, according to Kristen L. Sidman, an HWT-certified occupational therapist who works at the New England Center for Children, a private, nonprofit autism education center in Southboro. Unless an injury is involved, insurance won’t cover a penny.

That’s also the case for children who are not delayed developmentally but for whom the basic, visually oriented approach may not be adequate.

“Unfortunately, the majority of parents are paying out-of-pocket,” Ms. Sidman said.

To some, handwriting’s decline is about more than sloppy letters or not-so-fine motor skills. A product of both nature and nurture, skill and style, one’s script is unique and meaningful in a way that a thumbprint or retina scan can never be.

Reflecting on handwriting’s intrinsic value, Ms. Morris, the Sudbury school specialist, thought of her grandmother. A postmaster in a small town in rural New Jersey, she would send notes to all her grandchildren, each one lovingly penned in meticulous, regal script.

“It was just the feeling of warmth,” Ms. Morris remembered.

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