The scope of advance planning in written picture naming

Dynamics of Sentence Handwriting in Dyslexia: The Impact of Frequency and Consistency

Previous literature has indicated that linguistic and motor processes influence each other during written sentence production, and that the scope of this influence varies according to spelling ability or cognitive resources available. This study investigated how the spelling deficits associated with dyslexia affect the dynamics of the interaction between central and peripheral processes and the level of anticipation that can be observed in word spelling in the context of a sentence to dictation task. Children 9-12-year-olds with and without dyslexia wrote sentences to dictation in which the lexical frequency and phonology-to-orthography consistency of the last word (target) were manipulated. Analyses of kinematic measures (writing durations, in-air pen duration, and peaks of speed) revealed that children with dyslexia showed lexical frequency effects evident in within-word pauses (in-air pen) in the article and noun production. In addition, both children with and without dyslexia showed a phonology-to-orthography consistency effect in the pause before the target word. This effect tended to continue affecting the execution of the syllable prior to the inconsistency only in the group with dyslexia. Results support the influence of linguistic processes on motor execution. In addition, the study provides evidence of the impact of spelling deficits on the dynamics of handwriting in children with dyslexia.

Word writing in Spanish-speaking children: Central and peripheral processes

The impact of central on peripheral writing processes has been studied mainly in adults and children whose first language is a deep orthographic system. The results suggest that the influence varies according to age, but it also could depend on the orthographic system. The objective of the present work was to address the possible impact of the central (orthographic retrieval) on peripheral (motor execution) processes during writing acquisition in a transparent orthography. To achieve the objective, seventy-five Spanish children performed a copying and a spelling-to-dictation task, where orthographic consistency, lexical frequency and word length were manipulated. The results suggest that the central processes influence the peripheral ones from an early age (when writing has not yet been automated). Specifically, orthographic consistency cascaded into movement production, but it was modulated by task and grade, as this effect was only evident for 2nd grade children when they were asked to perform a spelling-to-dictation task.