This study is of particular interest to me after completing my fieldwork in a school system. I had the chance to work with many students who presented with emotional disturbances. I never worked with students based solely on goals associated with these emotional disturbances, but observed and attempted to proved treatment for their emotional disturbances after first working toward their school based goals. Typically these disturbances presented themselves as depression, aggression, and irritability. It was heartbreaking to look around the school and see how many students were affected by some form of emotional disturbances. Unfortunately as a school OT I was only to focus on goals that would make the student more functional in school (such as handwriting) and never had the ability to write goals base on a student's emotions. I believe that there is a great need for occupational therapists to focus on writing goals to provide interventions to students with emotional disturbances. In my setting there were not enough OT's/COTA's to work with all of the students who had emotional disturbances because there were so many students who first required school based interventions. This study suggests that more evidence-based research is needed to help school therapists work with children with emotional disturbances. I hope that eventually there will be a place for OT's in this area.

In this study, 38 students between the ages 7-10 who showed poor handwriting legibility were observed over the course of one school year. 29 of the students received regular occupational therapy services, 9 received no services. Each student was evaluated at the beginning and end of the school year in the areas of Visual-motor, visual-perception, in-hand manipulation, handwriting legibility, and speed. Students who received occupational therapy services showed more improvement in in-hand manipulation, position in space scores, and handwriting legibility scores than those students who did not receive occupational therapy services. Students who received occupational therapy services increased legibility with an average of 14.2%. Students who did not receive occupational therapy services increased legibility with an average of only 5.8%. However, students who did not receive occupational therapy services had more improved handwriting speed than those who did receive services. Overall, one may conclude that students with poor handwriting legibility who receive occupational therapy services will improve their handwriting legibility skills but not necessarily their ability to write with increased speed. During my fieldwork experience in the school system I was able to work with many students on handwriting goals. Regular occupational therapy can greatly improve a student's handwriting abilities. I saw positive results with many of my students after only 12 weeks of intervention.