I wonder if a time will come when my hands no longer know how to write the words I learned throughout my lifetime. So, sometimes, to refresh myself (or assess if I still know the things I believe I know), I jot down words I hear from a speaker (if I am in a gathering) into a digital screen using a digital pen, as if in a spelling contest.
After surprising myself that I still know what letters form a word (like how to spell | ˈrezə(r)ˌvwär |) and that I don’t write them out of order, I then wonder how many words are still in my brain. And how many of them have been sitting in the recess of my mind, waiting to be recalled?
In my previous blog post, where I shared with you how I rediscovered the joys of handwriting after having a nice pen, I pulled out a quote from research about how handwriting engages our motor control:
Gripping a pen nimbly enough to write is a complicated task, as it requires your brain to continuously monitor the pressure that each finger exerts on the pen. Then, your motor system has to delicately modify that pressure to re-create each letter of the words in your head on the page.
From Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning
After one question led to another, the term cerebellum (which I learned from grade school but never really remembered about beyond that time in my life) resurfaced in my memory after reading about how it is involved in motor learning and how it plays a role in some of our cognitive functions like attention, language, and emotional processing.
A recent study also talked about how “The cerebellum and the left dorsal premotor cortex are of fundamental importance in motor learning, and could be at the core of the acquisition and subsequent performance of handwriting.”
So, after some reading, I now know who to thank for allowing me to remember how to write the words I learned throughout my lifetime (which also enabled me to type this blog post quickly and effortlessly with a keyboard).
Thanks to our cerebellum at the back of the skull which “plays a vital role in the timing and execution of learned, skilled motor movement.”
jessa 