Learning and Automaticity Phases of the 'Invented Letter Task' Predict Probable Risk of Written-Language Disorders

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Topic - Developmental Disabilities

Abstract

This study tested associations between children’s procedural motor-skill learning and probable risk of literacy disorders on the basis of theoretical models proposed by Ullman (2004), Nicolson and Fawcett (2019), and Berninger, Richards, and Abbott (2015). Children’s procedural skills were assessed using a grapho-motor letter-writing task that served as the first of three developmental linguistic stages: children’s abilities at the levels of subword (grapho-motor writing of letters), word (reading/spelling) and probable risk of literacy disorder at the syntax/text level (reading comprehension and text-copying rate). One-hundred fifty-one Hebrew-speaking low-SES second-graders were tested in written-language abilities at three stages of development. A grapho-motor Invented Letter Task (ILT) was assessed at the beginning of second grade. Subsequent cognitive (verbal/non-verbal) and literacy measurements at the word level were assessed in the middle of second grade. Probable risk of literacy disorder at the syntax/text level was assessed at the end of second grade (reading comprehension) and at the beginning of third grade (text-copying rate).
Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze measurements among the three stages of the study (presented by language skill in three different points in time: subword, word, and syntax levels of language). The results of the final model indicated direct and mediated associations between procedural skill learning (ILT) phases and probable risk of literacy disorders, strengthening the notion of an association between procedural motor-skill learning and difficulties in literacy acquisition. Probable risk of reading-comprehension disorders was directly predicted by the ILT learning phase. In addition to the well-established associations between cognitive and literacy measurements, cognitive measures predicted the child’s level of reading comprehension above all, whereas literacy measures predicted text-copying rate abilities in the main.
The findings reinforced the theoretical model proposed and extended the results of Julies et al. (2016) for associations between literacy attainments and motor learning measured by the ILT. They also strengthened the reasoning that these associations hold among lower SES populations as well. Another way to expand the conclusions drawn from findings is to produce a cut score of children’s attainments in third grade, at higher levels of written language, for probable risk of disorders. This has been done in relation to all other well established cognitive and literacy predictors, reinforcing the notion that children at risk of literacy disorders may have delayed motor-learning skills (Nicolson & Fawcett, 2019).

Authors

• Chagit Hollander, Bar Ilan University
  Presenting Author

• Esther Adi-Japha, Bar Ilan University
  Non-Presenting Author