For any child, gaining literacy is the skill that follows speech on their road to self-expression. The act of writing one's name is the first step to the establishment of a public identity.

Not so for those in Japan with learning difficulties or physical disabilities so severe that they prevent the child from holding a brush or pen. Although the rudiments of reading and writing are taught in special schools, too often efforts are abandoned or neglected on the grounds that it is more trouble than it's worth or that it may be one challenge too many.

Group Monjiya, founded by the classically trained calligrapher Meiyo Minami, is living proof that even severe disability is no bar to anything. A large-scale exhibition of works by the 11 calligraphers who make up the group is having its first British showing at the Richard Attenborough Center for Disability and the Arts in Leicester until the end of January, when it will travel to Project Ability in Glasgow.

Hiroko Uemura, one of the 11, traveled to Britain with Minami and a group of supporters from Tanpopo no Ie, the social welfare facility in Nara where they are based. The exhibition was opened by the Deputy Lord Mayor of Leicester and received a great deal of attention in both the local and national media. Uemura and Minami ran two oversubscribed workshops that won raves from the participants, who included art students, disabled artists and senior citizens.

Minami's first contact with Tanpopo no Ie was in 1990, when she was asked by them to inscribe the certificates for winning entries in their annual "Wataboshi no Kai" concert for disabled composers and songwriters. Minami was no stranger to their world -- her youngest son is learning disabled and she had long been active at the special school he attended.

One of the Tanpopo no Ie residents is Sachiko Fukuoka who has both learning and physical disabilities. She would wander weeping through the center, frustrated at having nothing to do. The one activity in which she would become engrossed, however, was drawing pages and pages of faces.

Although it was clear that Fukuoka's limited vocabulary might rule out the possibility of her understanding the meaning of more esoteric kanji, Minami felt that the act of writing would give her the social confidence she clearly lacked. "After all, writing is a basic human right," she points out.

She began instructing Fukuoka, who gradually changed. Her weeping fits became a thing of the past and she began to take pride in herself, as her calligraphy became the point of establishing contact with others.

The transformation in Fukuoka has been mirrored to differing degrees by the others who have joined the group since Minami officially started classes eight years ago.

One of the members who had never used his hands and would write with a brush strapped to his headgear can now lift his arms and write with his hands. For people like Uemura, who is of normal intelligence and yet severely disabled by the effects of cerebral palsy, it has become the single most powerful means of self-expression.

"Uemura is a guinea pig for all my new ideas," Minami said, laughing. She tells how in the early days they experimented by suspending her by ropes from the ceiling so that she could move freely, but found that her muscles would go into spasm instead. Thus, massage and relaxation exercises became part of the warming up process for all of the group.

Their most ambitious move was to use the wheelchair, with Minami pushing as Uemura formed the characters. One of the most impressive results of this style is the centerpiece of the show in Leicester: a dynamic 2-meter work called "Nagareru" -- to flow.

Minami, who has taught calligraphy for 24 years, is a disciple of Koseki Yamauchi and the Ichiji-sho, or one-character style, which grew out of the movement to both simplify and concentrate calligraphy's visual impact. She felt that this was appropriate for her new students but found that some in the group experienced difficulty using a brush.

Those with cerebral palsy, or whose lack of mobility was due to neurological problems, had trouble using the traditional smooth-handled brush. They found it difficult to grasp and were distressed when it slipped out of their hands or when the paper tore from the intense pressure they exerted on it.

The problem of the paper was soon rectified when she found a willing ally in Isshindo, a local specialist store in Nara that located a tough but fine variety and has supplied it to the group at a low price since then.

The problem of the brushes was more intractable. She consulted her usual brush maker and together they devised ones with handles that used the chunky, ridged upper part of the bamboo plant. She also found that cutting the point of the brush so that it became blunter and less pointed enabled her students to achieve a variety of volume and thickness in their strokes.

As she explained, "Able-bodied calligraphers who work on the floor can bend up and down and use the brush very flexibly, but if you are in a wheelchair you can't do that and when the bristles are too long, they won't spread and you will only get a single ink line."

Minami is vehement in her insistence that the traditional tools should be used.

"In the case of Japanese calligraphy, sumi and the brush are its basic tools. I'm often asked why it can't be done with other types of brush, but I feel that the traditional tools should be used."

It is not a question of convention, she says, but more that authenticity is all-important to disabled calligraphers who must use unconventional and highly creative methods to produce their work and yet have to counter criticism from some able-bodied calligraphers on the grounds of purism.

The majority response, however, has been enthusiastic and Group Monjiya's shows have drawn many professional calligraphers, some of whom have moved to tears by the work.

It is not surprising. The works have a dynamism and freshness that is lacking in so much other work. "They say that my students have achieved what they have spent a lifetime aiming for," Minami said.

Her only regret is that her own son Keita is more interested in computer games than the art that she has so skillfully made accessible to a population long taught that it was beyond their reach.