HANDWRITING AND SPELLING: DYSLEXIC CHILDREN'S ABILITIES COMPARED WITH CHILDREN OF THE SAME CHRONOLOGICAL AGE AND YOUNGER CHILDREN OF THE SAME SPELLING LEVEL
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Abstract
<p class="first" id="d5604350e49">Handwriting speed and spelling were examined in
a group of 10-year-old dyslexic children
compared with children of the same age and with younger children of the same spelling
level. The children wrote lists of words onto a digitizer pad in three different condition:
a dictation, copying from a sheet on the desk and copying from a wall chart. The words
ranged in complexity from simple monosyllabic phoneme to grapheme words to words needing
orthographic and morphological information and non-words. There were differences in
writing speed between the 10-year-olds and 8-year-olds in most conditions. There were
no significant differences in speed of writing or pausing between the dyslexic children
and the 10-year-olds. There was a difference in the number of errors in the spelling
of non-words, the dyslexic children being inferior to both the other groups. The only
difference between the dyslexic children and the 8-year-olds was in speed of writing
in copying from the desk and in writing complex words. The performance of the dyslexic
group was more similar to that of the 8-year-olds in the dictation but to the 10-year-olds
in the copying conditions. Independent judges had no difficulty in identifying the
10-year-olds' writing but confused that of the 8-year-olds with the dyslexic children's.
It is proposed that the dyslexic children had automatised movement patterns linked
to spelling equivalent to their same age peers but that these patterns were built
on accumulated inaccuracies in both letter formation and spelling.
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