Dysgraphia

Question 1

What is acquired dysgraphia?

Answer 1

Term used to describe a partial or total impairment in writing following neurological damage (Rapcsak & Beeson, 2002)

Question 2

What causes dysgraphia? (2)

Answer 2

1. May result from language impairment

2. Praxis and visuospatial dysfunction

Question 3

What does dysgraphia often co-occur with?

Answer 3

Aphasia and therefore may become apparent if an individual uses writing as a form of communication

Question 4

What is pure dysgraphia?

Answer 4

A specific writing impairment

Question 5

What two functional systems does writing involve?

Answer 5

Linguistic and motor (Rapscak & Beeson, 2000)

Question 6

What do impairments at the linguistic level cause?

Answer 6

Central dysgraphia

Question 7

What do impairments at the motor level cause?

Answer 7

Peripheral dysgraphia

Question 8

What are the 3 subtypes of central dysgraphia?

Answer 8

Phonological
Deep
Surface

Question 9

What are 3 variants of peripheral dysgraphia?

Answer 9

Fluent

Apraxic

Question 10

What is a central dysgraphia caused by?

Answer 10

Disruptions from the semantic level to activating the representation in the orthographic output lexicon and/or transmitting to the graphic output buffer

Question 11

Are there dissociations between modalities in central dysgraphia? (2)

Answer 11

1. No dissociations in modalities

2. Because the impairment occurs above the motor level

Question 12

What is phonological dysgraphia characterised by? (2)

Answer 12

Beauvois & Derousne (1979)

1. A disproportionate difficult in processing NW compared to real words
2. Giving rise to a lexicality effect in writing

Question 13

What can be observed in phonological dysgraphia?

Answer 13

Coltheart et al. (2001)

1. Difficulties writing non-words/unfamiliar real words
2. Lexical errors
3. Frequency effects

Question 14

Who provides a case study of phonological dysgraphia?

Answer 14

Shallice (1981b): PR

Question 15

According to a cognitive model of single word processing, where does the breakdown occur in phonological dysgraphia? (2)

Answer 15

1. Breakdown in sublexical phoneme-grapheme conversion mechanisms
2. Lexical-semantic mechanisms are preserved

Question 16

What route does writing occur via in phonological dysgraphia?

Answer 16

1. Semantic-lexical route

2. AIL -> semantic store -> OOL -> GOB

Question 17

What is deep dysgraphia characterised by? (4)

Answer 17

1. Phonological deficits
2. Semantic errors
3. Lexicality effects
4. Difficulty writing non-words, as well as unfamiliar and abstract words

Question 18

According to a cognitive model of single word processing, where does the breakdown occur in deep dysgraphia?

Answer 18

An impairment between the mapping of the semantic system and phonological output lexicon

Question 19

What route does writing occur via in deep dysgraphia? (4)

Answer 19

1. Individual accesses a whole word spelling in the orthographic output lexicon from the phonological output lexicon
2. Impairment in semantic system and P-G conversion
3. Writing via an impaired semantic route (spells without knowing meaning of word)
4. AIL -> POL -> OOL -> GOB

Question 20

Summarise the similarities between phonological and deep dysgraphia (3)

Answer 20

1. P-G conversion is a difficulty
2. Therefore impaired NW writing (despite good repetition)
3. Imageability effect

Question 21

Summarise the differences between phonological and deep dysgraphia (4)

Answer 21

1. PR (phon) uses a real word mediator
2. PR (phon) strength in real words but poor in JC (deep)
3. Types of errors
4. Underlying impairment

Question 22

Explain the similarity of impaired NW writing (3)

Answer 22

1. JC scored 5/20 (4-letter-NW) and 0/17 (8-letter-NW) but 17/20 on concrete nouns
2. PR scored 6/40 on NW but 93% on real words
3. Both good repetition of NW

Question 23

What does good repetition of the NW show?

Answer 23

Perception or retention of the NW is not impaired in JC or PR

Question 24

What is a difference associated with NW between PR (phon) and JC (deep)? (3)

Answer 24

1. When PR wrote a NW correctly, he reported using a real word as a mediator
2. Sim -> sym (via symptom)
3. However once the mediator had been obtained, he did not seem able to use the phonology effectively to provide an appropriate modification

Question 25

What is a difference associated with real words between PR (phon) and JC (deep)?

Answer 25

1. PR shows strength in real word writing 2. Poor real words in JC, despite scoring 17/20 on concrete nouns, performs significantly worse on abstract nouns (9/20) and function words (6/20)

Question 26

Explain the similarity of an imageability effect (4)

Answer 26

1. JC has difficulties writing low imageability words 2. Discrepancy between content and function/abstract words 3. PR also showed better performance in content words -> written performance influenced by semantic aspects 4. Highlighted in PR's spontaneous writing

Question 27

What can be seen in PR's spontaneous writing? (4)

Answer 27

1. Omission of verbs 2. Incorrect verb conjugation 3. Function word substitutes 4. Also seen in case of JC

Question 28

Do other psycholinguistic variables impact phonological and deep dysgraphia?

Answer 28

No - there is no regularity or length effect

Question 29

What type of errors were seen in JC's NW attempts? (4)

Answer 29

1. Confabulations 2. Omissions 3. Attempting to convert into similar sounding real word 4. Semantic errors (eg. blom -> flower, time -> clock)

Question 30

What type of errors were seen in PR's writing? (5)

Answer 30

1. Lexical errors due to impairment in semantic route 2. Structurally similar (shy -> shine) 3. Derivational (spill -> split) 4. Morphological 5. Mixed (salary -> celery)

Question 31

Summarise the differences in error types in phonological and deep dysgraphia (3)

Answer 31

1. JC: semantic errors 2. PR: lexical errors 3. Both show omissions

Question 32

Summarise the overall similarities in phonological and deep dysgraphia(3)

Answer 32

1. Impairment in NW 2. Good NW repetition 3. Imageability effect

Question 33

Summarise the overall differences in phonological and deep dysgraphia (4)

Answer 33

1. Performance in real word writing 2. Process of NW writing 3. Error types 4. Underlying impairment