Mellissa Prunty
Chair. BSc., MSc OT, PhD, HCPC Registered
Mellissa is an Associate Professor in Occupational Therapy at the University of Limerick. She is also an Honorary Reader in Occupational Therapy at Brunel University of London. She is a children’s occupational therapist and her background prior to occupational therapy was in human movement science. She completed her PhD on handwriting difficulties in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), which she undertook at Oxford Brookes University under the supervision of Prof. Anna Barnett, Dr Mandy Plumb and Dr Kate Wilmut. She has worked in a variety of children’s services including independent practice since qualifying as an OT and specialises in working with children with coordination difficulties.
Mellissa founded a handwriting research clinic at Brunel University of London which now offers placements to occupational therapy students. She is an active researcher on the topic of handwriting and typing in children and young people.
Mellissa joined the NHA in 2010, has been a committee member since December 2013, and became chair in 2018.
Olivia Alonso
Olivia is senior lecturer at Psychology at Oxford Brookes. Her research interests concern language processing in general and the writing production process in particular. In her investigation, she addresses how spelling and handwriting develop throughout the lifespan and how these abilities might be disrupted in children with literacy difficulties such as developmental dyslexia. One of her main interests is how these processes affect each other and how this mutual influence changes with age, producing complex patterns of ability. She is also interested in the differences between handwriting and typewriting from a cognitive and developmental perspective.
Lesley Harding
BSc OT, MSc OT and Education, HCPC Registered
Lesley is a paediatric occupational therapist who has over 25 years’ experience in the NHS working in a range of community settings including home, school and a child development centre. She specialises in the assessment of how developmental conditions (such as DCD, dyslexia, hypermobility, ADHD, autism) impact on a child’s ability to access play, schoolwork, and self-care. She has a particular interest in supporting children with handwriting difficulties and has devised the OT Busy Hands programme inspired by the NHA course she attended many years ago.
Lesley is clinical lead for children with complex neuro-physical-learning disabilities who attend special schools, providing assessment and intervention in specialist seating, postural care, manual handling, and assistive technology/play. OT Busy Hands Extra Extra has been designed for children with multisensory needs.
Lesley joined the NHA committee as part of publications and inset training. She launched a regional NHA handwriting interest group for schools and health professionals. She enjoys her role as a private handwriting tutor, tailoring sessions to meet the individual child/young person’s interests and needs, praising effort as well as progress, and recognising that handwriting remains a powerful vehicle by which to enhance self-esteem, engagement with learning, participation in school life, and access study skills/revision.
Caroline McHugh
Co-vice-chair
Caroline is a children’s occupational therapist with extensive experience in both specialist and mainstream school settings. She is passionate about supporting children and young people to engage in meaningful and purposeful activities that enhance their health and wellbeing. Recognising handwriting as a key element of school success, Caroline collaborates closely with children and young people, their educators, and caregivers to develop children’s handwriting skills, helping them achieve their fullest potential.
As an experienced trainer, Caroline also delivers and facilitates training sessions for occupational therapists and educators, promoting evidence-based practices in handwriting development and sharing effective strategies for supporting handwriting in school settings.
Caroline has been an active NHA committee member since 2018 and was appointed Vice-chair in 2023.
Amanda McLeod
Hon Sec
Amanda is a highly skilled educator with extensive experience in state and private education, holding a BA from King’s College London, a PGCE from Roehampton, a Diploma in Special Educational Needs, and AMBDA certification. She is the ex-vice-chair of the National Handwriting Association, Chief Judge of the SATIPS handwriting competition, a frequent radio speaker on handwriting, and an author for the Scholastic R-Yr 6 series. She is also the founder of the McLeod Centre for students with learning disabilities.
Lynsey O’Rourke
BSc, PhD
Lynsey teaches psychology at Oxford Brookes University. She completed her PhD on the use of spellcheck by writers with dyslexia at Oxford Brookes University under the supervision of Prof. Vince Connelly, Prof. Anna Barnett and Dr Olivia Afonso. For her PhD, she investigated the impact of spellcheck on spelling accuracy and the disruption that spellcheck causes to text production for individuals with and without dyslexia. While her own research has focussed on typing, Lynsey has also been involved in handwriting research. In particular, in her role as a research assistant, she has spent a lot of time analysing the process and product of handwriting completed with digital tablets by children with DLD. She has also been involved in research into movements of children with DCD and research into supporting children’s writing.
Lynsey began contributing to the research section of the NHA journal, Handwriting Today, in 2014, and became a committee member in 2021.
Sue Smits
Sue is a specialist handwriting consultant, experienced trainer, adviser and the founder of Morrells Handwriting.
Sue has worked across early years, primary and secondary schools for over 19 years, helping educators in school settings to teach children the correct pencil grasp, letter recognition and joined-up handwriting techniques whilst supporting human development for pre-writing skills.
As a visiting lecturer to Worcester University and the University of East London, Sue teaches handwriting to PGCE and SEND trainee teachers. Her many years of handwriting knowledge, research, classroom observations and experiences as a parent and grandparent are compiled into her training. She is also a regular speaker at conferences and educational shows. Her passion for teaching the correct foundations for handwriting is evident from the moment you hear one of her lectures.
She has been a tireless campaigner, lobbying and advising government to ensure evidence-based practice for teaching handwriting is adopted by all educators and practitioners.
Sue is on the NHA committee and looks after the corporate members.
Michelle Stone
Co-vice-chair, BA (Hons), PGCE
Michelle is a specialist teacher in the East Riding of Yorkshire for children with physical difficulties, working with mainstream pupils who have physical needs/disabilities, which includes supporting them to record their work in school. Michelle has a varied experience of working with children with SEND in mainstream settings. Her background before specialising in physical support was as an early years teacher in Hull and London, then becoming a Senior Teacher for a large inner city primary school in Leeds, before relocating to East Yorkshire. Michelle led early years PE across Barnet whilst working in London and continued to be PE Lead when teaching in Leeds.
Michelle attended the 6-day NHA course in 2018 and was inspired to initiate a Handwriting Interest Group with some of the schools she supports in addition to working as an independent handwriting tutor. She is passionate about the importance of optimum physical development and handwriting/recording of work to enable children and young people to reach their potential in education.
As an experienced teacher, Michelle delivers training to schools and settings regularly, focusing on establishing policy and best practice to ensure achievement for all pupils. Michelle joined the NHA in 2020 and was appointed Co-Vice Chair in 2023.
Emma Sumner
BSc (Hons.), PhD, CPsychol
Emma is a senior lecturer in psychology at Edge Hill University. She is a Chartered Psychologist and holds the specialist teacher and assessor of dyslexia qualification (AMBDA). In her academic role, she leads the BSc Educational Psychology programme and has extensive experience of teaching on modules related to special educational needs and inclusion. Her research has focused on children with dyslexia, developmental coordination disorder (DCD), and those with an autism spectrum disorder; considering literacy development (spelling and handwriting) as well as the relationship between cognitive and motor skills. More recently, Emma has worked on funded projects to investigate how best to support literacy difficulties, for instance, the use of educational technologies in the classroom, as well as the provision and efficacy of exam access arrangements in secondary schools.
Emma joined the NHA as a committee member in December 2013.
Volunteers
Stephanie Exley
Emma Norman
Michelle Williams
