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Comment by fnordpiglet | Hacker News Reader

I’ve tried to find studies that actually differentiate cognitive development improvements for cursive writing but everything I found has the same results for manuscript and cursive, but that active writing with either script is the important thing.

Does anyone have references I missed?

This feels on the surface suspect. Why would cursive have some special value over any other script for cognitive development?

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I think it's just typical psychology bollocks. Cursive is faster to write, but much more difficult to read, especially if written by someone's else. So with cursive you can write down more and if you just assume that the more you write the better then you arrive at the 'obvious' conclusion that cursive is better for the cognitive development. I guess it all comes from the very old school of teaching where during a lesson a teacher literally dictated a paragraph from a textbook and the pupils carefully transcribed what they heard into their notebooks.

Except they bald faced claim it makes you smarter to learn cursive and promotes brain development. I’ve been searching literature and I can find absolutely nothing that supports their very direct claims.

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Experts say learning cursive improves cognitive development, reading comprehension and fine motor skills, among other benefits. … "We tell them, well, it's going to make you smarter, it's going to make some connections in your brain, and it's going to help you move to the next level. And then they get excited because students want to be smarter. They want to learn," Keller said.

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