Sensorimotor Intervention for Children with Handwriting Difficulties Regarding Arabic Characters from Occupational therapists' Perspectives in Indonesia

It is important to consider a sensorimotor approach in handwriting for improving basic performance skills such as visual-motor integration, visual perception, hand manipulation, and motor planning. This study aimed to highlight occupational therapists' experiences and perspectives on the use of a sensorimotor intervention among second-grade students with handwriting difficulties regarding Arabic characters. This study employed semi-structured individual interviews, through purposive sampling, of occupational therapists (N = 5) in Indonesia. The first interview lasted 60 to 80 minutes, while the second lasted 15 to 20 minutes. A qualitative study with inductive content analysis was used to analyze the data based on two themes from the research aims: sensorimotor intervention for handwriting difficulties with Arabic characters and clinical consideration of developing a handwriting program. From the occupational therapists' experiences, by strengthening performance components of handwriting and providing occupation-based graded activity, a sensorimotor intervention might improve the handwriting performance of students with difficulty regarding Arabic characters. Furthermore, when developing a handwriting program, the therapist must consider client and environmental factors.