A Low-Cost Grip Pen Sensing Tool to Detect Handwriting Disorders

Handwriting is a complex motor activity. Neurodevelopmental disorders, such as dysgraphia can lead to severe handwriting difficulties. These dysfunctions could be predicted by measuring the pen’s motion, the pressure of the tip and the grip force while handwriting. Various hardware platforms have been proposed to sense pen movement. However, the grip force sensing is more challenging and often requires high-end sensing devices. In this paper, we propose a low-cost pen grip sensing tool to detect pressures and positions of fingers on the pen. It consists of a flexible, mutual-capacitive sensor rolled around the pen and connected to an inexpensive microcontroller. We provide initial tests of our grip sensing tool on multiple single-touch conditions. The results show a homogeneity over the flexible sensor and a linearity of the response with several curvatures. Such novel device open new opportunities for neurodevelopemental disorders research and new possibilities for clinical purposes.