Dyslexia and dysorthography: identifying transversal prerequisites through screening of reading and writing abilities
Angela Pasqualotto, Laura Fattorelli, Paola Venuti
This paper describes a longitudinal experience of screening made in several schools in the province of Trento. The aim of this study was to investigate whether children «at risk» perform below average in some cognitive tasks when compared to typically developing children. Moreover, we wanted to identify potential causal links between the abilities assessed at the beginning and the literacy skills tested at the end of primary year one. A group of 219 children underwent a neuropsychological battery in order to evaluate its predictive value in identifying those at risk of early future learning disorders. Furthermore, multiple regression models were carried out to investigate the relative contribution of each function to reading and writing performance. In addition, we assessed the relationship between the performances of subjects «at risk of dyslexia» and subjects «at risk of dysorthography». The results highlight the role played by phonological awareness, naming, visuospatial attention mechanisms and processing speed. Overall, these findings appear to confirm the importance of using the multifactorial model to place learning disorders.
Keywords
Screening, predictors, early identification, literacy skills, primary school.