Is there a link between handwriting and intelligence?

[scarybear]

We all know that doctors are often less than neat.

I'm asking because I do notice that the brightest kids in dd's Year 2 class have very neat handwriting, in a lovely, flowing style.

Dd's handwriting is rather cramped and too small to read easily, however good the content may be.

I'd be interested to hear what you all think.

I would say no.

What people think is irrelevant. There is no data to suggest there is a link, and that is all that matters.

Oh, there can't be surely? Aren't some girls just neater because, in general, they have been brought up that "girl's are neat" . Isn't that why girls generally outdo boys at gcse because coursework is now important?

I think stephen hawkins can not write but he is VVVVV intelligent.....

ell mines appalling, i have a high iq but the memory faculties of an oyster so have never done well at school.

make of that what you will.

my personal viwe is good writing takes patience, i have none and rush therefore mine is shocking.

even watching someone write neatly makes me twitch as it takes so looooong!

My dh got a first from Cambridge and his handwritting is completely illegible.

Incidentally, (as someone who has always had terrible handwritting) my theory is that at school kids are often seen as "bright" at a young age because they have good handwritting. As kids get older, content becomes vastly more important than presentation and kids who were previously seen as bright (i.e. neat) get overtaken by scrawlers with interesting ideas.

Absolutely no correlation between handwriting and intelligence. I work with some of the most intellectually able people and their handwriting varies from beautifully crafted to almost illegible.

lol @ drnortherner. my sentiments exactly.

I do wonder if they are the brightest generally, or whether they just tick that particular box. DS's writing is dreadful. The worst in his class by some long way. He therefore has difficulty demonstrating just what he can do outside of maths.

All mine have shocking handwriting but are consistently towards top of the class. I remember being paranoid looking at books in class when dd1 was little at how awful her handwriting was compared to some others. Now they are all in 6th form, and the girl who had the loveliest writing back then (and who had me worried there was something wrong with dd lol) while a really sweet girl is totally unacademic while dd is doing fantastically well. Think its a bit like whether you can draw or not, or catch a ball or not.

I'd be inclined to think that Doctors' bad handwriting is more of a product of years of fast note taking at lectures.

dd2 has v poor fine motor skills and is on the (infamous) g&t list. lol.

Thanks for the replies, I feel greatly reassured!

My handwriting is terrible because I am left handed, but when I went to live with dad at the age of eight, he insited I write with my right hand, that went on for 4 years.

Ds has poor fine motor skills and couldn't really write more than a couple of words at a time until towards the middle of Yr2. The one thing all his teachers said was "We know he can do the work but we need to get some proof of it."

Once he was able to write in full sentences his level of work was found to be far higher than anyone had realised. It wasn't that he had suddenly become very bright overnight but just that he finally had the means to show what he could do.

So IME there isn't a link between handwriting and intelligence.

No way. My handwriting is illegible, and I am intelligent. However my co-ordination is terrible.

Not in my opinion, ds1's writing is ineligible at times yet he's very bright, ds2 isn't so bright but write's beautifully.
I'm not commenting on myself

lord no - ds1's officially "highly gifted" with a ludicrously high IQ (not that you'd know it most of the time ) and his writing is usually nothing better than a scrawl - his teachers aren't worried though as they say the content's great

ds2's brilliant at maths and yet his number formation is absolutely awful - I can barely make out what he's written half the time, but he has fine motor skills problems which mean writing generally is tricky

dd is very bright too, but has beautiful handwriting - it's much more a girl/boy thing than anything to do with intelligence

IME as a teacher and now a TA - I would say no.

my handwriting is diabolical - even I can't read it and I am a fairly high achiever academically luckily the working world doesn't require me to be able to handwrite

my DD is bright and working above average, her hand writing lets her down badly though

My 11 yr old DD's teachers have described her over the years as , superbly bright, brilliant and very talented.

Yet most of our parents evenings until this year have been spent discussing her atrocious handwriting. This year her handwriting is finally legible

My ds's handwriting went from being appalling and illegible, to be incredibly perfect in a year. How did he do it? We are living in India, and he goes to a local school where a huge amount of attention is given to perfecting handwriting. They spend hours in class (and homework too if we did what we were supposed to do...) copying things out to achieve this. Clearly my son's intelligence hasn't changed in that time! (And the downside is that they do very little of interest at all at school.)
mrs4

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