Jebsen Taylor Test of Hand Function (JTTHF)
What It Measures
The Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function Test times a person through seven everyday hand tasks, one hand at a time. Writing a short sentence, turning over index cards as if turning pages, picking up pennies and paper clips, simulated feeding with a spoon and beans, stacking checkers, moving empty cans, and moving weighted cans.
The score is simply the number of seconds each task takes, summed for a total. The non-dominant hand goes first. Because it measures speed rather than movement quality, it captures how efficiently a hand actually works without judging how it gets there. Published normative times let a result be compared against expected performance for the person's age and sex.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: The protocol is described in the published literature and reproduced without restriction. Commercial test kits are sold by several vendors, typically including instructions, all seven subtest materials, a carrying bag, and record forms — a kit can also be assembled from the published specifications.
Learn More: Two practical points. The writing subtest is culturally and linguistically loaded — research in non-English-speaking populations routinely drops it, and it is also the subtest with the weakest correlation to other hand measures. And some protocols cap each subtest at 120 seconds, which prevents a single very slow task from dominating a total.