Development, reliability, and validity of the Handwriting Proficiency Screening Questionnaire (HPSQ).

OBJECTIVE

This study was used to (1) develop an occupational therapy screening questionnaire (the Handwriting Proficiency Screening Questionnaire [HPSQ]) to identify handwriting difficulties among school-aged children and (2) examine its reliability and validity.

METHOD

The questionnaire's content validity was established. Internal consistency, interrater and test-retest reliability, and concurrent and construct validity were initiated. Participants included 7- to 14-year-old (N = 230) typically developing school-aged children.

RESULTS

The tool demonstrated good internal consistency (alpha = .90). Test-retest reliability for the score revealed an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of .84 and interrater reliability of ICC = .92 for the total questionnaire score. Construct and concurrent validity were also confirmed.

CONCLUSION

The HPSQ is suitable for use by occupational therapists for identification of handwriting deficiency among school-aged children and is appropriate for varied academic and clinical uses. More studies with larger samples of varied age groups are required to further support the questionnaire's reliability and validity.