Beyond spelling: the writing skills of students with dyslexia in higher education

Tops, Wim; Callens, Chana; Cauwenberghe, Eveline Van; Adriaens, Jessica; Brysbaert, Marc

doi:10.1007/s11145-012-9387-2

Cited by 56 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…As such, we can have some confidence that the remaining group differences on the timed summary measure are not from the known group differences in reading or spelling (e.g., Deacon et al, ). This finding converges with the results of Tops et al (), who found that transcription difficulties did not explain all of the challenges with a timed summary measure in university students with dyslexia. Here, we extend this finding to university students with a history of reading difficulties.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

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A beginning exploration of text generation abilities in university students with a history of reading difficulties

et al. 2019

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There is a fundamental lack of understanding of how university students with a history of reading difficulties perform on various demanding literacy tasks. We compared the text generation skills, measured with timed summary writing and proofreading tasks, of university students with a history of reading difficulties to those of students with no such history. We further examined whether between‐group differences in text generation skills remained after controlling for transcription skills (spelling and handwriting fluency), word reading, and reading comprehension. Forty‐six university students with a history of reading difficulties were matched on age, gender, and non‐verbal intelligence to 46 students without this history. We found that the students with a history of reading difficulties performed poorer on both measures of text generation than students without this history. When differences in transcription skills, word reading, and reading comprehension were controlled, we found that only differences in timed summary writing remained significant. These results suggest that students with a history of reading difficulties experience challenges with specific aspects of text generation that are beyond what one would expect from their difficulties with transcription and word reading. We suggest that, if not addressed, text generation deficits are likely to create obstacles for academic success.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…We initially scored the summaries according to the procedure in the manual; we were not able to produce an acceptable inter‐rater reliability with this approach. As such, we followed Tops et al's () scoring protocol. Both our measure and Tops et al's measure included a Readability and Handwriting Quality scale.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A beginning exploration of text generation abilities in university students with a history of reading difficulties

et al. 2019

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“…Among the several measures that can provide information about composition skills in writing, we chose structure because it is a skill common to both reading and writing. From the perspective of writing skills, this study is in line with Tops, Callens, Van Cauwenberghe, Adriaens, and Brysbaert's (2013) recommendations to: analyze students' composition skills, besides spelling; analyze writing skills developmentally; and explore writing skills in transparent orthographies. To analyze students' writing skills we chose a free-writing task, for three main reasons.…”

Section: Rationale and Research Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 58%

“…Future research should focus on the spelling component of writing, and replicate this study with a dictation or copying task. Future researchers interested in writing composition skills should replicate this study and include more measures of composition: breadth of vocabulary, readability, and the like (Tops et al, 2013). Finally, the results of this study refer to a population with a medium-high socio-economic level.…”

Section: Stability Of Reading and Writing Parameters At Two Points Inmentioning

confidence: 91%

Cross-lag analysis of longitudinal associations between primary school students’ writing and reading skills

et al. 2015

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The present study examined the relationship between reading (i.e., rapidity and accuracy) and writing competences (i.e., fluency, accuracy, and composition skills) of Italian children in the first and second grade. The performance of seventy-five children was longitudinally assessed over a 2-year period. Results demonstrated that reading and spelling were stable across the first two grades of primary school. Cross-lagged analyses suggested that spelling plays a pivotal role in the acquisition of formal literacy, especially within a transparent writing system like that of our Italian participants. Early progress in spelling becomes a resource for later reading acquisition. However, spelling did not correlate with the composition component of writing, suggesting the independence of these two processes. Results have implications for early childhood educators on the design and delivery of writing and reading instruction.

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“…Such students are often termed “high‐functioning dyslexics” (e.g., Gallagher, Laxon, Armstrong, & Frith, ; Pedersen, Fusaroli, Lauridsen, & Parrila, ) because they have succeeded in being enrolled in educational institutions assumed to require good literacy skills, such as universities (e.g., Hatcher, Snowling, & Griffiths, ; Kirby, Silvestri, Allingham, Parrila, & La Fave, ). Studies of such students have shown, in line with the phonological deficit theory of dyslexia (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, ), that many high‐functioning dyslexic students experience persistent problems in phonological awareness (e.g., Gallagher et al, ; Hatcher et al, ; Parrila, Georgiou, & Corkett, ; Snowling, Nation, Moxham, Gallagher, & Frith, ), nonword reading (e.g., Re, Tressoldi, Cornoldi, & Lucangeli, ; Tops, Callens, Lammertyn, Van Hees, & Brysbaert, ), and spelling (e.g., Kemp, Parrila, & Kirby, ; Snowling et al, ; Tops, Callens, Van Cauwenberghe, Adriaens, & Brysbaert, ). In terms of reading, most studies have found word‐reading deficits and reading‐speed deficits to persist (e.g., Deacon, Cook, & Parrila, ; Re et al, ; Snowling et al, ), with reading comprehension assessments showing more variable results (e.g., Deacon et al, ; Re et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Differences in the literacy skills of Danish dyslexic students in two types of higher education programmes

et al. 2019

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Previous research has treated high‐functioning dyslexic students as a homogeneous group. This study explores the clinical observation that dyslexic students attending university programmes differ from dyslexic students attending tertiary education professional programmes in some aspects of their literacy skills. Four groups, dyslexic university students (n = 32), dyslexic students attending professional programmes (n = 32), control university students (n = 31), and control students from professional programmes (n = 30), were assessed on measures of pseudoword reading, phonological choice, vocabulary, reading and spelling of morphologically complex single words, and reading aloud from a syntactically complex text. The results showed that the two dyslexic groups were comparable only on the phonological tasks, the dyslexic university students outperforming the professional programme students in all reading and spelling measures. Controlling vocabulary and number of semesters studied, the difference was no longer significant. Nevertheless, the analyses indicate that phonological deficits underlie the performance of professional programme students with dyslexia across a wide range of tasks, whereas university students with dyslexia may be able to limit the impact of phonological deficits to some extent by relying on some alternative cognitive attributes. Reading experience, orthographic learning, and working memory efficiency are discussed as possible explanations for this pattern of results.

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Beyond spelling: the writing skills of students with dyslexia in higher education

Cited by 56 publications

References 19 publications

A beginning exploration of text generation abilities in university students with a history of reading difficulties

A beginning exploration of text generation abilities in university students with a history of reading difficulties

Cross-lag analysis of longitudinal associations between primary school students’ writing and reading skills

Differences in the literacy skills of Danish dyslexic students in two types of higher education programmes

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