Handwriting performance of
children with dyslexia
Emma Sumner, Vince Connelly & Anna Barnett
emma.sumner@brookes.ac.uk
DYSLEXIA
 Specific learning difficulty with written language
(Rose, 2009)
 Phonological deficit
 Affects reading acquisition and spelling
 English has a deep orthography
 Spelling requires explicit teaching
 High cognitive cost for individuals with dyslexia
 Possible co-occurring motor difficulties (Rose, 2009; Chaix et al., 2007)
 Slow handwriting?
THE WRITING PROCESSES
Berninger & Swanson (1994)
Note. *activates long-term memory during composing and short-term memory during reviewing
PREVIOUS RESEARCH
 For typically developing children, handwriting speed
predicts text length and quality (Graham et al., 1997)
 Inconsistent findings of children with dyslexia having slow
handwriting
 No different to peers on copying tasks (Martlew, 1997)
 1SD below the mean on the alphabet task (Berninger et al., 2008)
 Spelling ability predicts compositional skills of children
with dyslexia (Berninger et al., 2008)
RESEARCH AIMS
To investigate handwriting execution using a writing tablet:
 Do children with dyslexia demonstrate a slower handwriting speed
than their peers?
 Are they slower at composing written text?
 Do children with dyslexia pause frequently while writing?
PARTICIPANTS

31 children with dyslexia (mean age 9 years)
 31 typically developing age controls (9 years old)
 31 spelling-ability matches (6 years old)

Selection measures:





Cognitive ability
Phonological awareness
Reading and non word reading
Spelling
Manual dexterity.
Note. There were no differences across the groups for cognitive ability or manual dexterity
METHOD

Alphabet task (1)
Write the alphabet in the correct sequence, as many times as possible in 60 seconds

Writing task (2)
Narrative: ‘Design a place for you to live....describe how you want your ideal home to
look’
(1)
Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting (Barnett et al., 20007); (2) Wechsler Objective Language Dimensions (Rust, 1997).
ANALYSIS
 Letters/words per minute
 Online (writing tablet):
 Temporal characteristics
 Execution speed = distance covered / time spent physically writing
RESULTS: ALPHABET TASK
Dyslexic
Age-matched
Spelling-ability
30.87 (14.98)
37.87 (10.51)
17.87 (11.95)
Execution speed
2.32 (.59)
2.23 (.53)
1.75 (.47)
Pause time (secs)
40.41 (5.94)
36.75 (5.56)
39.45 (4.57)
Writing time (secs)
19.25 (5.59)
22.95 (5.37)
20.04 (5.10)
No. of letters
Note. No of letters = letters/minute; execution speed = cm/s, excluding pauses.
 No difference between children with dyslexia and their peers on the
letters produced or execution speed measures
 They pause for longer while writing – could explain slightly lower
number of letters written.
RESULTS: FREE WRITING
Text characteristics:
Dyslexic
Age-matched
Spelling-ability
Analytic score (raw)
8.61 (2.72)
13.68 (3.20)
7.52 (1.59)
Spelling errors
15.39 (9.01)
4.87 (4.08)
12.56 (8.78)
21%
4%
39%
% of text
 In comparison to their peers, the quality of the writing
produced by children with dyslexia is much lower
 They perform at a similar level to the younger SA group
RESULTS: FREE WRITING
Speed of composing text:
Dyslexic
Age-matched Spelling-ability
Words per min
8.19 (3.34)
11.48 (3.56)
5.17 (2.38)
Execution speed (cm/s)
2.11 (.69)
2.19 (.64)
1.59 (.44)
 When actually writing on the page, children with dyslexia can execute
handwriting at the same speed as their peers
 So, why do they write significantly fewer words per minute?
RESULTS: FREE WRITING
Temporal characteristics
Total writing time (mins)
12
10
38%
8
27%
6
4
27%
73%
62%
D
CA
73%
2
0
Writing time
Pause time
SA
 Here, the children with dyslexia match the younger spelling-ability group
CONCLUSIONS
 The writing tablet provided a detailed analysis of the execution of text:
 Argues against claims of slow handwriting by children with dyslexia
 Rather, it shows that the fluency of transcription is frequently interrupted
 Demonstrates that handwriting is influenced by other processes, such as spelling
 Suggests that poor spelling is acting as a barrier to productivity
 Focused interventions on spelling instruction may contribute to
resolving the slow rate of composing text.
Special thanks to Vince
Connelly, Anna Barnett,
The Waterloo Foundation,
and all the children that
participated in this
research.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING
REFERENCES
 Berninger, V. W., Nielsen, K. H., Abbott, R. D., Wijsman, E., & Raskind, W. (2008). Writing problems in
developmental dyslexia: Under-recognized and under-treated. Journal of School Psychology, 46, 1-21.
 Berninger, V. W., & Swanson, H. L. (1994). Modifying Hayes and Flower's model of skilled writing. In E.
Butterfield (Ed.), Children's Writing; Toward a Process Theory of Development of Skilled Writing (pp. 57-81).
Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
 Chaix, Y., Albaret, J.-M., Brassard, C., Cheuret, E., Castelnau, P., Benesteau, J., et al. (2007). Motor
impairments in dyslexia: The influence of attention disorders. European Journal of Paediatric Neurology, 11,
368 - 374.
 Graham, S., Berninger, V. W., Abbott, R. D., Abbott, S. P., & Whitaker, D. (1997). Role of mechanics in
composing of elementary school students: A new methodological approach. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 89, 170-182.
 Martlew, M. (1992). Handwriting and spelling: Dyslexic children’s abilities compared with children of the same
chronological age and younger children of the same spelling level. British Journal of Educational Psychology,
62, 375-390.
 Rose , J. (2009). Identifying and teaching children and young people with dyslexia and literacy difficulties.
DCSF-00659-2009. London: DCSF Publications. Retrieved from
http://publications.dcsf.gov.uk/eOrderingDownload/00659-2009DOM-EN.pdf.