Fourth graders with learning disabilities in transcription (handwriting and spelling), LD-TD, and without LD-TD (non-LD), were compared on three writing tasks (letters, sentences, and essays), which differed by level of language, when writing by pen and by keyboard. The two groups did not differ significantly in Verbal IQ but did in handwriting, spelling, and composing achievement. Although LD-TD and non-LD groups did not differ in total time for producing letters by pen or keyboard, both groups took longer to compose sentences and essays by keyboard than by pen. Students in both groups tended to show the same pattern of results for amount written as a larger sample of typically developing fourth graders who composed longer essays by pen. Results for that sample, which also included typically developing second and sixth graders, showed that effects of transcription mode vary with level of language and within level of language by grade level for letters and sentences. However, consistently from second to fourth to sixth grade, children wrote longer essays with faster word production rate by pen than by keyboard. In addition, fourth and sixth graders wrote more complete sentences when writing by pen than by keyboard, and this relative advantage for sentence composing in text was not affected by spelling ability. Implications of the results for using computers for accommodations or specialized instruction for students with LD-TD are discussed.
Two instructional experiments used randomized, controlled designs to evaluate the effectiveness of writing instruction for students with carefully diagnosed dyslexia, which is both an oral reading and writing disorder, characterized by impaired word decoding, reading, and spelling. In Study 1 (4th to 6th grade sample and 7th to 9th grade sample), students were randomly assigned to orthographic or morphological spelling treatment but all students were taught strategies for planning, writing, and reviewing/revising narrative and expository texts. Both treatments supervised the assessment team. Margaret McShane and Doug Stock served as administrative assistants.
Superior (10 girls, 10 boys), average (10 girls, 10 boys), and poor (10 girls, 10 boys) spelling ability groups were identified in first (age 6) or third (age 8) grade and assessed annually for four years. In separate analyses, a simultaneous set of phonological, orthographic and morphological predictors, a simultaneous set of pseudoword spelling and word-specific orthographic spelling predictors, and a simultaneous set of real-word and pseudoword reading accuracy and rate predictors jointly predicted individuals’ spelling ability group (superior, average, or poor) from first to sixth grade. Results are discussed for significance of results for Triple Word Form Theory (relationships of multiple language skills to spelling development), advantages of multivariate approaches that analyze a set of joint predictors, and importance of designing studies so that findings can be generalized to specific regions of the distribution — upper, middle, and lower — rather than the entire distribution of spellers in an unreferred sample.
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