Comparison of Name-Writing Ability to Motor and Phonological Abilities in Preschool-Aged Children

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between name-writing and phonological development and name-writing and motor abilities in preschool aged children through a correlational analysis.

Method: Previous data collected on children ages 3;0 to 4;11 (years; months) were gathered from the Phon Farm laboratory at Oklahoma State University and Purdue University. The children's name-writing was taken from an assent form they were asked to print their names on and was scored with the Simple Scale (Puranik, Schreiber, Estabrook, & O'Donnell 2014). The measures of phonological development were based on four previously collected measures and the children's motor abilities were taken from a parent questionnaire in which the parents rated their children's fine- and gross- motor abilities. The children's socioeconomic status was also taken into consideration and used as a variable. This study used a Pearson correlational analysis to examine relationships among these variables.

Results: The analysis yielded statistically significant correlations between age and two-syllable nonwords collected from another study, age and name-writing score, two-syllable nonwords and name-writing score, and two-syllable nonwords and Dollaghan and Campbell (1998) nonword repetition. Age was assumed to play a role in the correlation between name-writing score and two-syllable nonwords therefore a partial correlation analysis was conducted that controlled for the effect of age. Results of the partial correlation indicated no statistical significance between name-writing and two-syllable nonwords.

Discussion: The results indicated no strong correlation between name-writing and phonological development and between name-writing and motor abilities. Therefore, it cannot be concluded that name-writing is correlated to phonological development or motor abilities. Age may be considered a significant factor in that the children are more successful in name-writing and phonological development tasks the older they get. Future studies should be done to determine whether a relationship exists between name-writing and phonological development, and whether age should be considered a factor as a child matures with an inferred improvement of skills.