The Write Stuff
(An Article About Kate Gladstone)

By CHRISTINE MILLER

     Paul Weihrauch tells a story of a doctor who was on the carpet’ because of his signature on a patient's chart. "The hospital authorities said the signature was so legible that it clearly had to be a forgery,"  Weihrauch explains with a grin.  "I don't know if it's a true story but it would be nice if it were. " Of course it's not only physicians who run into problems with illegible handwriting. Lawyers, pharmacists, teachers all rely on handwritten notes. But as Karen Conrad points out, it's a very real problem for doctors these days.  "In fact, the Joint Commission on Hospitals has issued a federal mandate that physicians must have legible handwriting," she says. Conrad and Weihrauch are founders and co-owners of Therapro, a Framingham-based  catalogue company with customers literally all over the world. Last Saturday, the 264th anniversary of the birth of John Hancock, Therapro hosted a handwriting repair workshop in Hancock's  honor. Therapro is a catalogue company with a very special niche market. In 1980,  Conrad was working in the  Brookline public schools as their one and only occupational therapist. She foresaw the growth in occupational therapy and came up with the idea of a company to supply therapy resources to professionals and families. Conrad and Weihrauch who live in Newton, founded Therapro in Framingham  in 1986. Originally based on Waverly Street, the
company relocated after  a few years to the warehouse building on Arlington Street which it now occupies. Their market base has expanded to include more and more speech and physical therapists as well as occupational therapists. Therapro has a smaller catalogue supplying resources for adult rehabilitation and elder care, and a larger main catalogue with supplies for children. The catalogue and the Arlington Street showroom include a tremendous range of educational toys and tools, covering every aspect of child development.
     "We have always targeted our market at individual therapists," says Weihrauch.  "We get orders from school systems all over the US. Other business comes from therapists in private practice and teachers using their own money to supplement school supplies, and we get a lot of business from individual parents." For Therapro, handwriting  was a natural follow-on from addressing the fine motor skills required for handwriting. Saturday's workshop was presented by Kate Gladstone, an expert in handwriting repair, from Albany New York.   "We encountered Kate Gladstone promoting one of the oldest forms of handwriting, "  says Weihrauch.  " It's Italic  handwriting technique. It's very simple: it goes back to the beginning before handwriting became a social grace and got  embellished with flourishes and complexity. It's more appropriate for people having difficulty with handwriting."  Weihrauch describes Gladstone as single-minded in her commitment.  "She is a student of the whole history and development of handwriting!"  he says.  "She knows the whole historic background to italic writing: it's very interesting. She has such a scope of knowledge, with a million ideas on how to teach. "  About  50 people attended Saturday's three-hour workshop. Gladstone, an enthusiastic energetic personality, ensures audience participation. Class members practice letters on their worksheets or are invited up to "have a go" on the chalk board. Gladstone brings each letter of the alphabet completely back to basics. I watched one
participant  write a series of "m"s on the chalk board with Gladstone sounding out the rhythm for him:  "down, up and over. "  Gladstone writes on the  chalkboard backwards, sideways, with one hand then the other, while she talks, all in perfect handwriting. So it came as a surprise when she told me why she became involved in handwriting repair.  "My own handwriting was once extremely poor, says Gladstone.  "I was a typical kid. My writing wasn’t legible if I wrote fast. Even in college my books were illegible. I decided to research the subject. Why do people have such problems? How do you help people with handwriting problems? I made contact with other people all over the world. The answer is to  simplify. Italics is the answer: take what they learned and use it today. Everything came from Italics. We all can read italics. It’s the extra loops and things that cause problems.  We should teach something that works and stick with it. "  For the most part, Gladstone's audience was enthusiastic. Amy Wagenfeld, a college teacher from Belmont found the workshop  "Very lively and very helpful, not only for O.T but for educators in general." Debra Plugis and Karen Clarke, both occupational  therapists in the Framingham schools, also found it useful. "It's always nice to find new methods,"  says Clarke.  "There are a lot of sloppy writers who would benefit from tips like this."

Visit Kate Gladstone's website, Handwriting Repair.