The purpose of this inquiry was to examine the interrelations among handwriting legibility and speed, and underlying perceptual-motor skills in Persian language students. Seventy students (26 male, 44 female; 10.21 ± 1.02 yr; 30 poor and 40 good control hand writers) were assessed during a copying task. The children completed the visual-motor control (VMC), upper-limb speed and dexterity (ULSD), ‎ and upper-limb coordination (ULC) ‎ subtests of the Bruininks–Oseretsky test of motor proficiency (BOT). The poor group scored significantly lower on handwriting legibility and speed in comparison with classroom controls in the copying task. Correlation coefficients between perceptual-motor function scores with handwriting legibility, and with handwriting speed varied from -0.11 to 0.40, and 0.17 to 0.39 respectively. Results showed that both legibility and speed predicted differences between students classified as “poor” and “good” hand writers. Results also showed that in the poor hand writers group, age, gender, BOT-ULC, and BOT-VMC were found to be significant predictors of legibility of handwriting, whereas gender and BOT-ULC were shown to be significant predictors of handwriting speed. The findings suggest that distinct perceptual-motor components may underlie writing during copying. Poor quality of handwriting of children seems to be particularly related to some sort of deficiency and dysfunction in perceptual-motor skills. Future studies should determine the possible benefit of interventions including stimulant in perceptual-motor functioning and handwriting performance, to enhance performance in these areas.

The prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), as a developmental neurological condition, has increased in recent years. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-motor exercises on the improvement of some large and delicate motor skills of children with autism based on Gentile's Two-Stage Model. In the present Semi-experimental study, one of the rehabilitation centers under the supervision of Tehran Welfare Organization was selected as via the convenience sampling method and 20 children aged 6-10 years with autism were randomly divided into two homogeneous experimental and control groups. The subjects in the experimental group participated in a six-week training protocol (three sessions per week). Each session was made up of 60 minutes of cognitive-motor exercises based on Gentile’s model. Bruininks-Oseretsky subtests of motor proficiency were employed for data collection. The collected data were analyzed using the repeated measures ANOVA. The results indicated that after cognitive-motor training, running and agility skills, static and dynamic balance, upper limb coordination and response speed in the experimental group increased significantly (p<0.05). As the findings showed, cognitive-motor exercises designed as a useful method can be used to rehabilitate the fine and gross motor skills of children with autism.