Writing to dictation and handwriting performance among Chinese children with dyslexia : relationships with orthographic knowledge and perceptual-motor skills

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between writing to dictation, handwriting, orthographic, and perceptual-motor skills among Chinese children with dyslexia. A cross-sectional design was used. A total of 45 third graders with dyslexia were assessed. Results of stepwise multiple regression models showed that Chinese character naming was the only predictor associated with word dictation (β= .32); handwriting speed was related to deficits in rapid automatic naming (β= -.36) and saccadic efficiency (β= -.29), and visual-motor integration predicted both of the number of characters exceeded grid (β= -.41) and variability of character size (β= -.38). The findings provided support to a multi-stage working memory model of writing for explaining the possible underlying mechanism of writing to dictation and handwriting difficulties.