WCSE

Handwriting Movements of Chinese Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Digitized Analysis Using Arabic Numeral Writing Assignments

Abstract— The study analyzed handwriting characteristics of Chinese autism spectrum disorders (ASD) children using Arabic numeral handwriting tasks. 10 children with ASD and 11 matched typical developing (TD) subjects were required to write Arabic numeral sequence from 0 to 9 and write the numeral 3 repetitively. Measures in spatial, kinematic and dynamic aspects were extracted. Besides, dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm was explored to analyze the shape feature in repetitive writing task. The results indicated that the ASD children wrote with significantly larger size, higher velocity and higher acceleration in the Arabic numeral sequence task. In repetitive writing of the numeral 3, the ability in keeping similar number shapes was significantly worse for ASD children, as measured by the DTW distance. The results suggest that the designed Arabic numeral handwriting tasks are effective in evaluating handwriting skills of ASD, which would offer a reference for further research and thus contribute to targeted intervention in ASD.

Index Terms— handwriting, autism spectrum disorders, motor difficulties, dynamic time warping

Tingting Ren, Fang Li, Wenjing Li, Jianfei Luo, Zhongcheng Wu
High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CHINA
Tingting Ren, Wenjing Li
University of Science and Technology of China, CHINA

ISBN: 978-981-11-3671-9 DOI: 10.18178/wcse.2017.06.17Xsrc="http://www.wcse.org/uploadfile/2019/0823/20190823055609629.png" style="width: 120px; height: 68px;" />[Download]

Cite: Tingting Ren, Fang Li, Wenjing Li, Jianfei Luo, Zhongcheng Wu, "Handwriting Movements of Chinese Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Digitized Analysis Using Arabic Numeral Writing Assignments," Proceedings of 2017 the 7th International Workshop on Computer Science and Engineering, pp. 1403-1407, Beijing, 25-27 June, 2017.