Writing to dictation and handwriting performance among Chinese children with dyslexia: Relationships with orthographic knowledge and perceptual-motor skills

• Published in: Research in developmental disabilities Vol. 34; no. 10; pp. 3372 - 3383
• Main Authors: Cheng-Lai, Alice, Li-Tsang, Cecilia W.P., Chan, Alan H.L., Lo, Amy G.W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2013; Elsevier
• Subjects: Asian Continental Ancestry Group - statistics & numerical data; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child clinical studies; Chinese; Comorbidity; Cross-Sectional Studies; Developmental disorders; Dictation; Disorders of higher nervous function. Focal brain diseases. Central vestibular syndrome and deafness. Brain stem syndromes; Dyslexia; Dyslexia - ethnology; Dyslexia - physiopathology; Dyslexia - psychology; Female; Handwriting; Humans; Learning disorders; Linguistics; Male; Medical sciences; Memory, Short-Term - physiology; Motor Skills - physiology; Motor Skills Disorders - ethnology; Motor Skills Disorders - physiopathology; Motor Skills Disorders - psychology; Nervous system (semeiology, syndromes); Neurology; Orthographic; Perceptual Disorders - ethnology; Perceptual Disorders - physiopathology; Perceptual Disorders - psychology; Perceptual-motor skills; Prevalence; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychomotor Performance - physiology; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Reading; Dyslexia; Chinese; Handwriting; Perceptual-motor skills; Orthographic; Dictation; Human; Reading disorder; Motor skill; Developmental disorder; Orthography; Knowledge; Language disorder; Communication disorder; Hand writing; Language; Learning disability; Perception; Performance; Motricity; Child
• ISSN: 0891-4222; 1873-3379
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ridd.2013.06.039

•Chinese word dictation difficulties were related to deficits in lexical knowledge.•Slow handwriting speed was related to poor rapid automatic naming.•Visual motor integration accounted for variability in handwriting legibility.•Morphological and orthographic trainings are useful for writing intervention. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between writing to dictation, handwriting, orthographic, and perceptual-motor skills among Chinese children with dyslexia. A cross-sectional design was used. A total of 45 third graders with dyslexia were assessed. Results of stepwise multiple regression models showed that Chinese character naming was the only predictor associated with word dictation (β=.32); handwriting speed was related to deficits in rapid automatic naming (β=−.36) and saccadic efficiency (β=−.29), and visual-motor integration predicted both of the number of characters exceeded grid (β=−.41) and variability of character size (β=−.38). The findings provided support to a multi-stage working memory model of writing for explaining the possible underlying mechanism of writing to dictation and handwriting difficulties.