"Cursive handwriting engages sensorimotor brain regions that are not activated by typewriting"

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/202...

"For young adults, we found that when writing by hand using a digital pen on a touchscreen, brain areas in the parietal and central regions showed event-related synchronized activity in the theta range. Existing literature suggests that such oscillatory neuronal activity in these particular brain areas is important for memory and for the encoding of new information and, therefore, provides the brain with optimal conditions for learning. When drawing, we found similar activation patterns in the parietal areas, in addition to event-related desynchronization in the alpha/beta range, suggesting both similarities but also slight differences in activation patterns when drawing and writing by hand. When typewriting on a keyboard, we found event-related desynchronized activity in the theta range and, to a lesser extent, in the alpha range in parietal and central brain regions. However, as this activity was desynchronized and differed from when writing by hand and drawing, its relation to learning remains unclear."

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.0181...

Neither of those references are about writing in cursive. They are about writing with hand vs typing.

Any benefit found will still be there if people use print letters; or scribble fast shorthand.

Beginner typing is a discrete muscle action, under conscious control and attention. Hunt for, or try to remember, where the letter is. Then the finger moves a fixed amount and hits a button. Then the next letter. Sort of jerky. Letter by letter. Fluent typing is a more composite act, a sort of dance where the fingers roll back and forth in extended, fluid motions. Not coincidentally, fluent typists are prone to mixing up words like "fluid" and "fluent", as I just did and had to correct. Type entire words or phrases correctly, incorrectly. Often they sound similar or have a similar semantic sense. Slightly fuzzy erroneous activation, of ingrained muscle memory patterns, is my interpretation of that effect.

A similar level of fluency emerges with handwriting over time. One stops forming individual letters, and whole sequences become one extended flow of the pen. Entire words. It detaches the executive function and short term memory and attention of the mind, from the flow of individual letters and how words are spelled and put together. That becomes an automatic process.

We probably wish to encourage that fluency in multiple modes.

Why would we want that fluency in more than one mode? Isn’t print lettering enough?

It’s not as if more is better. Sometimes more is just more to learn and not have time for other things.

Yeah when I was in school I remember them saying all professional/academic writing had to be cursive. What a lie lol

I learned mechanics from the Ford Motor Company training camp and got a good job when I was 16. Fancy decorative writing means nothing to me.