Length effects in pseudo-word spelling: stronger in dyslexic than in non-dyslexic students

Abstract

It is often discussed whether dyslexics show a deviant pattern of reading and spelling development when compared to typically developing students, or whether they follow the same pattern as other students, only at markedly slower rate. The present cross-sectional study investigated phonological encoding skills in dyslexic Danish students. We compared dyslexic and non-dyslexic students from grades 3, 5, 7, and 9 and examined whether effects of item length were stronger in the dyslexic groups. Mixed between-within subjects analyses of variance revealed significant interactions between dyslexia status and item length as the dyslexics at all grade levels were more affected by item length than their non-dyslexic peers. A marked developmental delay was apparent as the dyslexic group from grade 9 performed on approximately the same level as the non-dyslexic group from grade 3. Although the overall difference between these two groups was not significant, a significant interaction between dyslexia status and item length remained because the grade 9 dyslexics were more affected by item length than the younger non-dyslexic students. This difference in error profiles suggests a difference in the developmental patterns of dyslexic vs. non-dyslexic students.

Portuguese spelling in primary grades: complexity, length and lexicality effects

“…For example, in adults with acquired dysgraphia longer words elicited a higher number of spelling errors (Buchwald & Rapp, 2003;Tainturier & Caramazza, 1996). Furthermore, it was recently observed that length had an even more detrimental effect in spelling in children and adolescents with dyslexia compared to typically developing peers (Juul & Petersen, 2017). Because stimulus length can influence spelling accuracy, considering length effects in the study of spelling acquisition allows a more refined characterization of the development of each orthographic complexity.…”

The Spelling Errors of French and English Children With Developmental Language Disorder at the End of Primary School

“…If, on the contrary, they present with error types commensurate with their spelling level, this would suggest an overall delay in all linguistic processes involved in spelling, commensurate with their language skills. This methodology has been used to characterize the spelling profiles of dyslexic children, pointing to subtle differences in their spelling, over and above those expected given their spelling level (e.g., specific difficulties with the silent letter e, Bourassa and Treiman, 2003; and with consonant clusters in English, Bruck and Treiman, 1990; or with long words in Danish, Juul and Petersen, 2017). If such differences could be found in children with DLD, they might be a marker of language difficulties in spelling, and a potential target for future interventions.…”

The development of handwriting speed and its relationship with graphic speed and spelling

“…The impact of both the lexical and the sublexical spelling routes on handwriting speed was assessed by manipulating, respectively, the lexicality (words, pseudowords) and the length of stimuli included in a spelling-to-dictation task. Although these variables are known to affect spelling processes (Henry, Beeson, Stark, & Rapcsak, 2007;Juul & Petersen, 2017), evidence for their influence on kinematic measures of handwriting is more reduced than that obtained for other psycholinguistic variables such as word frequency or phonology-toorthography regularity. Based on previous evidence suggesting that sublexical variables affect handwriting movements more consistently than lexical variables (Afonso et al, 2018), we expect to find significant effects of word length on handwriting speed in this task, but it is less clear if lexicality will affect writing durations.…”