Keyboarding versus handwriting speed of higher education students with and without learning disabilities: Does touch-typing assist in narrowing the gap?

Keyboarding has become an essential writing mode. Yet, many do not keyboard as fast as they handwrite, perhaps due to lack of efficient keyboarding skills. The current study examined the immediate and long-term effect of a touch-typing program on narrowing the gap between keyboarding and handwriting speed among higher education students. The study included 17 normally achieving students and 25 students with specific learning disabilities (i.e., reading and/or writing disabilities). Results showed that at the end of the program, handwriting remained a faster writing mode than keyboarding. This condition changed over time, and at the delayed post-test (approximately 3 months following the completion of the program), keyboarding became faster than handwriting. However, this change was significant only within the group of students with specific learning disabilities. These results stress the importance of efficient and automatic keyboarding for writing among the general population and particularly among students with specific learning disabilities.