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Spelling disability: A developmental linguistic analysis of pattern abstraction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Sybil Schwartz
Sybil Schwartz*
Affiliation:
McGill-Montreal Children's Hospital Learning Centre
*
Dr. Sybil Schwartz, McGill-Montreal Children's Hospital Learning Centre, 3640 de la Montagne, Montréal, Québec H3G 2A8, Canada
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Abstract

The ability of Learning Disabled Spellers to abstract spelling patterns was compared to two groups of normal spellers; Poor and Good. One hundred and eighty children were studied: 20 Good Spellers, 20 Poor Spellers, and 20 Learning Disabled Spellers at each age level from 8 to 10 years. Patterns were investigated using three tests; two multiple choice tests, one with nonsense words and one with real words, and a dictation test using nonsense words. The Learning Disabled Spellers showed little ability to abstract patterns at ages 8 and 9 but made considerable improvement from 9 to 10. The performance of the Learning Disabled Spellers was significantly below that of both the Good and Poor Spellers and quite distinct from the Poor Spellers. Error analyses suggest that the responses of the Learning Disabled Spellers are characteristic of those of younger, normal children.

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Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , December 1983, pp. 303 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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