Sex Differences in Handwriting: a comment on Spear

Abstract Margaret Spear suggests either that there are differences between the handwriting of boys and girls or that teachers are operating with popular cultural stereotypes. This paper presents evidence to show that there are indeed substantial differences between the handwriting of boys and girls and that this difference is clearly recognised by seven to eight year‐olds.

[1]  S. Ratcliffe,et al.  The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities--sex and handedness effects in 128 Scottish five-year-olds. , 1984, The British journal of educational psychology.

[2]  K. Dillon Narcissism and Embellishments of Signature , 1988, Psychological Reports.

[3]  Margaret Goddard Spear,et al.  Differences between the Written Work of Boys and Girls , 1989 .

[4]  Sue James,et al.  Parents' and Teachers' Perspectives on Preschool Literacy Development , 1990 .

[5]  Florence L. Goodenough,et al.  Sex Differences in Judging the Sex of Handwriting , 1945 .

[6]  M. Trueman,et al.  The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities: A Normative Study on English 4-Year-Olds. , 1982 .

[7]  S. M. Newhall Sex differences in handwriting. , 1926 .

[8]  B. Tew. Differences between Welsh and Canadian children on parts of the test of motor impairment. , 1979, Child: care, health and development.

[9]  M. E. Broom,et al.  Sex differences in handwriting. , 1929 .

[10]  June E. Downey,et al.  Judgments on the sex of handwriting. , 1910 .

[11]  H. Tenwolde,et al.  More on sex differences in handwriting. , 1934 .

[12]  P. Eisenberg Judging expressive movement: I. Judgments of sex and dominance-feeling from handwriting samples of dominant and non-dominant men and women. , 1938 .

[13]  D Lester,et al.  Graphoanalytic Differences by Sex and Handedness , 1982, Perceptual and motor skills.

[14]  W. Dennis,et al.  Causes of retardation among institutional children: Iran. , 1960, The Journal of genetic psychology.

[15]  J. S. Kinder A new investigation of judgments on the sex of handwriting. , 1926 .

[16]  C. Bradley Sex bias in examining reconsidered: A rejoinder to Rudd , 1985 .

[17]  P. Young Sex differences in handwriting. , 1931 .

[18]  E. Rudd A reply to Bradley , 1985 .

[19]  K. Connolly,et al.  Developmental changes in some components of a motor skill. , 1968, British journal of psychology.

[20]  P. Vernon The matching method applied to investigations of personality. , 1936 .

[21]  Clare Bradley,et al.  Sex bias in the evaluation of students , 1984 .

[22]  David Lester,et al.  Studies on Disguised Handwriting , 1979 .