Examining the relationship between motor assessments and handwriting consistency in children with and without probable Developmental Coordination Disorder

•Children with probable DCD had low scores on behavior assessments such as VMI, MABC and MHA.•Children with probable DCD showed high temporal, not spatial, variability in repetitive letter writing tasks.•The MABC is a good predictor for evaluating the temporal consistency of repetitive letter writing.•The VMI, MABC and MHA scores could not predict the spatial characteristics of repetitive letter writing.•Children with probable DCD had prominent difficulties on the temporal aspect of handwriting. Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) often experience difficulties in handwriting. The current study examined the relationships between three motor assessments and the spatial and temporal consistency of handwriting. Twelve children with probable DCD and 29 children from 7 to 12 years who were typically developing wrote the lowercase letters “e” and “l” in cursive and printed forms repetitively on a digitizing tablet. Three behavioral assessments, including the Beery–Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI), the Minnesota Handwriting Assessment (MHA) and the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC), were administered. Children with probable DCD had low scores on the VMI, MABC and MHA and showed high temporal, not spatial, variability in the letter-writing task. Their MABC scores related to temporal consistency in all handwriting conditions, and the Legibility scores in their MHA correlated with temporal consistency in cursive “e” and printed “l”. It appears that children with probable DCD have prominent difficulties on the temporal aspect of handwriting. While the MHA is a good product-oriented assessment for measuring handwriting deficits, the MABC shows promise as a good assessment for capturing the temporal process of handwriting in children with DCD.