The Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting, Second Edition (DASH-2), is a standardized tool that measures the handwriting speed of children and young adults, aged 8 to 25 years. The DASH-2 is designed to identify handwriting difficulties and provide objective data to support intervention planning and educational accommodations. With its research-based norms from the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, the DASH-2 offers reliable insights into the functional handwriting abilities of students, helping professionals better understand individual needs and track progress over time. Featuring five subtests, the DASH-2 assesses handwriting performance across tasks that require varying levels of speed and accuracy, making it an invaluable resource for anyone looking to enhance their student's handwriting skills
Features:
Comprehensive Handwriting Evaluation: Includes five subtests:
Copy Best: Copying a sentence in ‘best’ handwriting for 2 minutes
Alphabet Writing: Writing lower case letters in alphabetic order from memory continuously for 1 minute
Copy Fast: Copying letters in words and words in sentences from a model sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet quickly for 2 minutes. This is the same sentence used in Copy Best.
Graphic Speed: Drawing X’s in circles for 1 minute
Free Writing: Writing on the topic of My Life of Past/Present/Future for 10 minutes
Standardized Scores: Provides subtest scaled scores, composite scores, and total score percentile ranks, offering a full profile of a student's handwriting speed.
Normative Data: Collected from over 1,300 children and young adults across the UK and Australia/New Zealand between 2021 and 2023, ensuring reliable benchmarking.
Versatile Administration: Can be used in both individual and group settings, making it adaptable to a variety of educational environments.
Objective Data for Accommodations: Provides the necessary evidence to support applications for special accommodations in educational settings.
Types of Scores: The DASH-2 yields different types of scores pertaining to the five DASH-2 tasks:
Raw scores and scaled scores for each of the four core tasks
Total Standard Score
Percentile equivalents for the Total Standard Score
The four types of supplementary scores provide:
A scaled score for the Graphic Speed task
A Copy Speed Difference score for the Copy Best/Copy Fast tasks
Percentage of illegible words from Free Writing
WPM score for each section on the Free Writing task, to provide a profile of the whole Free Writing task
Qualitative Observations and Additional Information
During the performance of the DASH-2 tasks, the examiner has the opportunity to observe the ‘process’ of handwriting and to record their observations on the back of the Record Form. These process observations are described as the 4Ps and include posture, pen grip, paper position, and pressure of the pen/pencil on the paper. The legibility and consistency of letter formation are observed and recorded as the 7Ss: Shape/letter formation, size, spacing, slant/slope, stringing together/joining, Site/sitting on the line, shakiness
Ages: 8 to 25 years Authors: Anna L. Barnett, Shelia E. Henderson, Beverly Scheib Publication Date: April 2024 Administration: Individual or group
What's In The Box
DASH-2 Complete Kit: 1 Examiner Manual 25 Record Forms 1 Set of Stimulus Cards Additional Components
DASH-2 Record Form: 25 Record Forms
DASH-2 Stimulus Cards: 1 Set of DASH-2 Stimulus Cards
DASH-2 Administration and Scoring Manual: 1 DASH-2 Administration and Scoring Manual
How To Use It:
Administration: Each subtest takes between 2 to 10 minutes.
Scoring: Score each subtest by hand using the scoring criteria provided in the Administration and Scoring Manual.
