Spelling problems after early oral language difficulties

Abstract

Recent research has stated that early oral language acquisition difficultiesare related to reading and writing difficulties. Children with developmentallanguage disorder (DLD) experience difficulties with several dimensions of lan-guage. In this study we focus on the specific difficulties of children with DLD inspelling. We examine the impact of lexicality and length in written productionof Spanish-speaking children with DLD. A total of 18 children with languagedifficulties (Mage = 8;4) were compared with age-matched children (Mage =8;2). Participants completed a spelling-to-dictation task of words and pseudo-words, where length was manipulated. A digital tablet was used to collect dataand obtain measures of accuracy, latencies and total writing durations. Resultsshowed that children with DLD produced more errors, longer latencies andlonger writing durations than age-matched children. Regarding accuracy, analy-sis of the errors shows that children in the control group produce few errors, mostbeing substitutions, while children with DLD made more errors and of more var-ied categories. Moreover, they were more affected by length on writing accuracythan the control group.