Teaching preschool children with autism and developmental delays to write

Introduction: Handwriting Without Tears® program (Olsen, 1998) has been suggested as an appropriate set of procedures to teach students with and without disabilities skills in written communication. Unfortunately, there has been little research in the peer reviewed literature where the program has been employed to teach children with autism /and or developmental delays handwriting Objectives: The purpose of this study was to increase the legibility of letters using tracing procedures from the Handwriting Without Tears® program (Olsen, 1998). Method: The program was implemented to teach two preschoolers with autism or developmental delays four developmentally appropriate letters. A multiple baseline design (Kazdin, 1982) was employed to assess the effects of the Handwriting Without Tears® program. Two preschool students with autism were our participants. The data collection and procedures were carried out in a special education preschool classroom. The number of legible letters were scored. Results: Our outcomes indicated that during baseline neither participant could legibly write the letters chosen for study. The outcomes of this study also indicated that the use of the Handwriting Without Tears® chalkboard and worksheet along with a highlight, model and start point, can increase a students' ability to write specified letters. This finding was replicated across all of the participants. Discussion: The evidence from the present action research supports the use of portions of the Handwriting Without Tears program. These was found for preschool students ASD. The use of these procedures were discussed.