Constraining Stroke Order During Manual Symbol Learning Hinders Subsequent Recognition in Children Under 4 1/2 Years

In the age of technology, writing by hand has become less common than texting and keyboarding. Learning letters by hand, however, has been shown to have profound developmental importance. One aspect of writing by hand that has been understudied is the effect of learning symbols stroke-by-stroke, a dynamic action that does not occur with keyboarding. We trained children to draw novel symbols in either an instructed stroke order or in a...