Overview
The Minnesota Handwriting Assessment (MHA; Reisman, 1999) is a norm-referenced instrument that can be used from January of first grade through second grade to assess manuscript handwriting with the Zaner-Bloser, Palmer, or D’Nealian styles. It is a near-point copy assessment that can be administered either individually or to a group in approximately 2 ½ minutes and scored in less than 10 minutes. The MHA is a standardized assessment that results in scores for rate, legibility, form, alignment, size, and spacing. Scores are assigned to the following categories: Performing Like Peers, Performing Below Peers, and Performing Well Below Peers. According to the author, students who fall in the bottom 5% (Performing Well Below Peers) should be considered for further evaluation.
Summary
Age: 1st to 2nd grade
Time to Administer: 2.5 minutes
Method of Administration: Norm-referenced; clinician-administered; near-point copy assessment of manuscript writing
Yields scores in rate, legibility, form, alignment, size, spacing- these are compared to same-age peers in terms of percentages
Subscales: N/A
Autism Related Research
None found.