Components affecting expressive writing in typical and disabled writers

Cornoldi, Cesare; Prete, Francesco Del; Gallani, Anna; Sella, Francesco; Re, Anna Maria

doi:10.1108/s0735-004x(2010)0000023012

Cited by 12 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Another problem concerns the fact that tasks used to elicit narratives have also varied considerably, so no inferences can be drawn on the role of expression modality. Different hypotheses can be advanced on how the written and oral modalities might compare: On one hand, it may be that good and poor comprehenders do not differ as a function of expression modality because the cognitive processes involved in oral and written production are substantially the same, although the two skills have been demonstrated to be separate (Berninger & Abbott, 2010); on the other hand, writing involves not only cognitive skills but also metacognitive processes (e.g., Cornoldi, Del Prete, Gallani, Sella, & Re, 2010), so any differences emerging between good and poor comprehenders could be due to poor comprehenders’ well-documented more limited metacognitive aptitude (e.g., Cataldo & Cornoldi, 1998). In other words, the writing process could be more difficult for poor comprehenders because it requires metacognitive knowledge and several metacognitive processes, such as the ability to reflect on narrative aims and structure and to revise the text.…”

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confidence: 99%

Oral and Written Expression in Children With Reading Comprehension Difficulties

Carretti

Motta

2014

J Learn Disabil

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Several studies have highlighted that children with reading comprehension difficulties also have problems in tasks that involve telling a story, in writing or verbally. The main differences identified regard poor comprehenders' lower level of coherence in their productions by comparison with good comprehenders. Only one study has compared poor and good comprehenders' performance in both modalities (oral and written), however, to see whether these modalities differently influence poor comprehenders' performance. We qualitatively and quantitatively compared the performance of good and poor comprehenders in oral and written narrative tasks with the aim of shedding light on this issue. Regression analyses were also used to explore the role of working memory and vocabulary in explaining individual differences. Our results showed that the two groups produced narratives of comparable length, with similar percentages of spelling mistakes, whereas they differed in terms of the quality of their narratives, regardless of the modality. These differences were qualified by analyzing the children's use of connective devices, and poor comprehenders were found to use a higher proportion of additive devices than good comprehenders. Regression analyses showed that working memory (particularly the intrusion errors measure) explained a modest part of the qualitative differences in narrative production. Implications for our theoretical understanding of poor comprehenders' profiles and education are discussed.

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confidence: 99%

Oral and Written Expression in Children With Reading Comprehension Difficulties

Carretti

Motta

2014

J Learn Disabil

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“…Working memory (WM) plays an important role in many cognitive tasks (e.g., Baddeley, 1983Baddeley, , 1986Baddeley, , 2000Cornoldi, 2007Cornoldi, , 2019, and several authors focused their attention on its fundamental coordination role in interactive and recursive learning processes such as writing (e.g., Kellogg, 1987;Bourdin and Fayol, 1994;Butterfield et al, 1996;McCutchen, 1996McCutchen, , 2000Swanson and Berninger, 1996;Berninger, 1999;Cornoldi et al, 2010;Re et al, 2014;Capodieci et al, 2018;Cornoldi, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Learning to write is a process that necessitates the development of several skills that are likely to involve different amounts of WM resources: graphomotor skills, which underlie the production of the graphic stroke; orthographic skills, which involve orthographic knowledge and the correct conversion of phonemes into graphemes; and written expression skills, the most complex, which are necessary to produce a written text (Ferrara and Cornoldi, 2019). The latter involve several steps: planning (goal definition, idea generation, organization of ideas, themes, and logical conclusions), transcription (converting the mental representation of the text into written symbols using phonological and orthographic knowledge), and revision (checking for errors and inconsistencies, making adjustments to improve the text; Hayes and Flower, 1980;Swanson and Berninger, 1996;Cornoldi et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Working Memory on Writing Processes

et al. 2021

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Literature has extensively demonstrated the coordination role of working memory (WM) in complex tasks such as writing. However, previous studies mostly concentrated on the relation between passive WM (e.g., WM span) components and specific writing tasks (e.g., dictation). Here, we aimed to investigate the relationship between different writing skills and the performance on a WM updating task measuring the more active components of WM. From a pool of 160 Italian pupils (grades 3–5), we selected 46 children divided in two groups based on their WM updating performance. The first group consisted of 21 children with low WM updating performance (≤10th percentile), the second group consisted of 25 children with high WM updating performance (≥90th percentile). All children were tested on a battery of writing tasks to assess writing speed, orthographic skills, and competences in expressive writing. MANOVAs and a discriminant analysis were computed to assess group differences and the contribution of the different writing tests in correctly predicting group membership. The results revealed that children with high WM updating performance scored significantly higher than children with low WM updating performance on most of the writing tasks. These results highlight the relevant role of the active components of WM on writing processes. In addition, they suggest that the improvement of writing skills should rely not only on the training of the specific processes implied in this complex task, but also on the training of the cognitive processes that support them, such as active WM processes.

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“…A relation has been also confirmed in atypical samples of children [ 28 , 29 , 30 ], whose automatic and controlled components of attention may be impaired [ 31 ]. Several studies, in fact, have shown that attention deficits are associated with difficulties in writing quality, the number of genre elements, vocabulary, orthographic coding, and handwriting [ 32 ]; for further detail, see the review by Graham et al [ 33 ]. Attentional executive skills (e.g., planning, translating, reviewing, and revising) are crucial for writing development, as they allow for the self-regulation of textual writing [ 34 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention Components and Spelling Accuracy: Which Connections Matter?

et al. 2021

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Attention and working memory are cross-domain functions that regulate both behavioural and learning processes. Few longitudinal studies have focused on the impact of these cognitive resources on spelling skills in the early phase of learning to write. This longitudinal study investigates the contributions of attention and working memory processes to spelling accuracy and handwriting speed in 112 primary school children (2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade; age range: 7.6–9.4 years) learning to write in the Italian transparent orthography. Standardised batteries were used to assess their attention and working memory skills, as well as their spelling. Homophone and non-homophone errors were measured, as they may involve different attentional and working memory processes. The results showed that, for 2nd grade children, selective attention shifting, planning, and inhibition predicted non-homophone errors, whereas sequential working memory predicted homophone errors and writing speed was explained by planning and selective attention. In 3rd grade, only homophone errors were predicted by planning and inhibition. No significant relationships were found in 4th grade, nor in the transition across grades. Dynamic and diversified roles of attentional and working memory processes in predicting different writing skills in early primary school years emerged, with a gradual decrease in the attention–writing relationship with age.

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Components affecting expressive writing in typical and disabled writers

Cited by 12 publications

References 18 publications

Oral and Written Expression in Children With Reading Comprehension Difficulties

Oral and Written Expression in Children With Reading Comprehension Difficulties

The Role of Working Memory on Writing Processes

Attention Components and Spelling Accuracy: Which Connections Matter?

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