Writing is a complex skill that requires several prerequisites, such as dynamic coordination of the upper limb, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, pressure and speed control, space-time organization, short and long-term memory, perception and visual analysis. These prerequisites should become automatic and integrated in the writing process, so that the orthographic and linguistic aspects can emerge. If graphomotor skills are not enough developed, children could encounter fatigue and experiences of frustration, which can lead to difficulties in completing the proposed activities.

Handwriting difficulties usually emerge at school as executive slowness or poor quality. According to the Law 170/2010 on specific learning disabilities, teachers should observe such difficulties, train them and report persistent problems for clinical investigation. However, distinguishing between a simple weakness and the risk for more serious problems (dysgraphia) is not trivial, especially at an early stage. As a result, over- or under-reporting can occur, with detrimental effects on both the healthcare system and children in need.

Clinical diagnosis suffers from the lack of evidence on the understanding of the learning components associated to a poor outcome. Indeed, the handwriting process analysis is not standard practice yet. To fill this gap, the novel guidelines on dysgraphia diagnosis strongly suggest enriching the classical evaluation with technological tools (smart pens, tablets).

The successful adoption of technology in the screening process should drive the entire process of observation and training of lacking abilities at school in a pre-clinical stage. This will allow to:

1. provide objective parameters indicators for the evaluation;
2. study learning curves in time and response to training;
3. enable the use of artificial intelligence algorithms to help in the discrimination of children with some weakness or at risk of a learning delay.

Technology could become an ally only if it is well integrated in standard school practice. For this reason, easy to use tools should be proposed, such as

1. a smart ink pen capable of collecting kinematic and dynamic parameters when writing on paper;
2. a tablet equipped with a pen to widen evaluation and training to the use of serious games.

The ultimate objective of the e-School 2.0 project is the creation of a technology-based ecosystem for the management of writing weaknesses in the pre-clinical stage.