SEATTLE, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Poor penmanship can hurt children's performance at school and their self-esteem, experts say.
"A child who struggles with handwriting spends more time thinking about the letters they're writing than the words or the content that they're putting down on paper," said Katrina Erickson of the Handwriting Without Tears program.
"It's a big problem for children because they're not able to express themselves," Erickson told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Part of the problem, said Seattle occupational therapist Heidi Hynes, is that elementary schools have de-emphasized the handwriting curriculum while many colleges do not instruct teachers how to teach penmanship skills.
Experts said -- aside from school papers and tests -- poor penmanship could lead to lowered self-esteem and communication problems that carry into adult life.
"It just breaks your heart when the only problem at school is handwriting," said Hynes. "But that is not an uncommon phenomenon."
