The aim of this study was to analyze whether children with and without difficulties in handwriting, spelling, or both differed in alphabet writing when using a keyboard. The total sample consisted of 1,333 children from Grades 1 through 3. Scores on the spelling and handwriting factors from the Early Grade Writing Assessment (Jiménez, in press) were used to assign the participants to one of four groups with different ability patterns: poor handwriters, poor spellers, a mixed group, and typically achieving students. Groups were equalized by a matching strategy, resulting in a final sample of 352 children. A MANOVA was executed to analyze effects of group and grade on orthographic motor integration (fluency of alphabet writing) and the number of omissions when writing the alphabet (accuracy of alphabet writing) by keyboard writing mode. The results indicated that poor handwriters did not differ from typically achieving children in both variables, whereas the poor spellers did perform below the typical achievers and the poor handwriters. The difficulties of poor handwriters seem to be alleviated by the use of the keyboard; however, children with spelling difficulties might need extra instruction to become fluent keyboard writers.

Arithmetic word problem (AWP) solving is a highly demanding task for children with learning disabilities (LD) since verbal and mathematical information have to be integrated. This study examines specifically how syntactic awareness (SA), the ability to manage the grammatical structures of language, affects AWP solving. Three groups of children in elementary education were formed: children with arithmetic learning disabilities (ALD), children with reading learning disabilities (RLD), and children with comorbid arithmetic and reading learning disabilities (ARLD). Mediation analysis confirmed that SA was a mediator variable for both groups of children with reading disabilities when solving AWPs, but not for children in the ALD group. All groups performed below the control group in the problem solving task. When SA was controlled for, semantic structure and position of the unknown set were variables that affected both groups with ALD. Specifically, children with ALD only were more affected by the place of the unknown set.

La destreza de escribir correctamente los números se adquiere en los primeros años de educación primaria. Sin embargo, existen niños a los que se les dificulta realizar el cambio del código verbal al arábigo, cometiendo errores de omisión, adición e inversión de números hasta finales de la educación primaria. El objetivo de este trabajo ha sido analizar la escritura de números de unidades, decenas y centenas en función del nivel de rendimiento en matemáticas. En este caso se encontró que la escritura de centenas es una variable capaz de discriminar a los niños con dificultades de aprendizaje en matemáticas (DAM) de otros grupos. A raíz de estos resultados, se procedió a un análisis cualitativo de los tipos de errores en escritura de centenas cometidos por los distintos grupos evidenciando una predominancia de los errores léxicos sobre los sintácticos en todos los grupos de rendimiento, específicamente se evidenció que los errores de codificación literal, inversión y omisión son más frecuentes en los grupos DAM y rendimiento bajo.

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