Writing and Composition Difficulties

Study Notes

Writing and composition difficulties are a significant disorder characterized by specific and significant writing deficits.
These deficits are not caused by intellectual limitations, vision problems, or inadequate schooling.
Orthographic errors tend to be phonetically correct, unlike reading disorders where there are typically a variety of errors.
There is a distinction between dysgraphia and dyslexia.
Dysgraphia pertains to motor issues with letter formation and writing.
Dyslexia refers to word formation issues.

Message planning is the most complex cognitive process in writing.
Key steps in planning involve: deciding what to write, how to write it, who the audience is, and prior knowledge the audience may possess.
Message planning occurs in three stages:
Idea generation: Drawing upon semantic and episodic memory.
Idea organization: Selecting and arranging information.
Message review: Evaluating the message based on intended goals.

Writing construction takes into account sentence structure and the positioning of content words within a sentence.
The structure of writing is more complex than spoken language because it allows for review and revision before finalization.
Context is also important when deciding how to structure a written message.

Word selection is generally an automatic process, selecting words from semantic memory that best fit the intended meaning.
There are two main routes in locating written words:
Direct or lexical route: Starts with meaning, then searches for the corresponding letters in lexical memory.
Indirect or graphemic route: Converts the sound into visual form via grapheme-phoneme conversion in the phonological lexicon.

The use of words is the result of selecting the appropriate font, letter style, and retrieving the motor actions required to reproduce the shape.
Two processes are involved in converting letters into writing:
Selecting the appropriate font type/style.
Translating allographs into motor commands.

Difficulties in writing can be categorized into four groupings based on the process affected.
Each grouping has specific characteristics:
Phonological dysgraphia: Trouble converting sounds into written form.
Superficial dysgraphia: Difficulty with arbitrary spelling
Motor Execution dysgraphia: Motor weakness in letter formation.
Visuospatial dysgraphia: Issues with spatial organization and formatting.