Disorders of Reading and Writing

Usefulness content found at American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 

Highlighting ASHA

Language Domains Primarily Affected

Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, & Pragmatics 

Reading, and Word Recognition (Semantic & Phonology)
Description of Disorder

• Sometimes referred to as Dyslexia
• Difficulty exists despite adequate instruction and absence of intellectual, sensory, or neurological difficulties
• Difficulty with accurate and/or fluent word recognition difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition
• Poor spelling
• Language comprehension relatively intact

Focus of Assessment/Treatment

• Alphabet/letter knowledge
• Phonological awareness (rhyming, segmenting and blending, awareness of sounds and syllables in words)
• Sound-symbol correspondence
• Sight word knowledge
• Reading decoding
• Reading fluency
• Spelling
• Vocabulary

Reading, and Reading Comprehension (Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, & Pragmatics)

Description of Disorder

• Sometimes referred to as Specific Comprehension Deficit or Hyperlexia
• Inadequate reading comprehension
• Adequate or advanced word recognition skills
• Adequate reading fluency
• May have social, cognitive, or linguistic deficits
• Differentiate hyperlexia from precocious reading, the presence of advanced word recognition and advanced reading comprehension skills in typically developing children

Focus of Assessment/Treatment

• Print awareness
• Knowledge of basic story structure and story components
• Vocabulary knowledge (including multiple-meaning words; synonyms and antonyms)
• Understanding meaning from context
• Figurative language and ambiguities (e.g., multiple meaning words and ambiguous sentence structures) in text
• Paraphrasing and summarizing
• Making inferences
• Knowledge of different text structures and genres
• Use of strategies to facilitate comprehension (e.g., skimming, rereading, taking notes)
• Using strategies to self-monitor comprehension
• May need to address spoken language difficulties

Writing, and Writing Process (Semantics, & Pragmatics)

Description of Disorder

• Sometimes referred to as Dysgraphia
• Dysgraphia is a term used for problems with transcription; it can occur alone but often accompanies dyslexia and may occur with other learning disabilities
• Dysgraphia encompasses both motoric and linguistic-cognitive aspects of writing; linguistic-cognitive aspects are involved in the writing process and the writing product
• Pattern of difficulty in letter formation, sequencing, and spelling
• Difficulty may be secondary to issues with letter formation, sequencing, and spelling
• Dysgraphia, as it relates to the writing process, involves difficulty planning, drafting, reflecting on, revising, and editing one's writing
• Poor discourse planning and organization

Focus of Assessment/Treatment

• Using pictures to tell stories
• Writing for different purposes (e.g., entertain, persuade, inform)
• Writing for different audiences
• Planning (e.g., brainstorming; use of story maps; webbing)
• Drafting (e.g., referring to story maps, webs, planning notes)
• Using digital technologies (e.g., internet) to gather information for writing
• Revising and editing content
• Spelling

Writing, and Writing Project (Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, & Pragmatics)

Description of Disorder

• Sometimes referred to as Dysgraphia
• Dysgraphia, as it relates to the writing product involves
• Difficulty organizing and adequately expressing thoughts in writing
• Difficulty constructing grammatically correct sentences of varying types and difficulty using writing conventions (e.g., capitalization and punctuation)
• Limited written fluency
• Syntactic formulation problems (complexity and correctness impacted)
• Word choice limitations (in variety and appropriateness)
• Numerous words spelled incorrectly

Focus of Assessment/Treatment

• Pretend Writing
• Writing letters of the alphabet
• Printing first and last name
• Labeling pictures
• Producing text via handwriting and/or keyboarding
• Copying text
• Writing from dictation
• Writing a variety of grammatically correct sentence types
• Judging correctness of grammar and morphology and correcting errors
• Writing cohesively (e.g., including detail, linking ideas, elaborating)
• Using conventions of writing correctly (e.g., capitalization and punctuation)
• Knowledge of different text structures and genres

Spelling, and Can Affect Both Reading and Writing (Phonology, Morphology)

Description of Disorder

• Sometimes referred to as Dysorthography
• Difficulty with the encoding of phonological information; this is a particular area of weakness for most individuals with dyslexia
• Impaired ability to represent the phonological structure of regularly spelled words
• Difficulty remembering and reproducing the patterns of irregularly spelled words
• Lack of morphemic awareness in spelling
• Difficulty spelling words (and inflecting them correctly) in sentence contexts

Focus of Assessment/Treatment

• Using letter-sound knowledge to spell words as they sound
• Understanding phonological, morphological, and orthographic aspects of regular and irregular spellings
• Correcting spelling errors

Spoking and Can Affect Both Reading and Writing (Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, & Pragmatics)

Description of Disorder

• May be referred to as Oral and Written Language Learning Disability
• Oral written language disorders involve problems of similar severity that cross multiple systems.
• Marked difficulty with oral language may result in difficulty pronouncing complex words and problems with reading decoding, spelling, and language comprehension

Focus of Assessment/Treatment

• Address areas of difficulty in reading, writing, and spelling as indicated above depending upon the constellation of difficulties.
• Treatment should match the degree to which sound/word structure knowledge and sentence/discourse level knowledge are impaired across spoken and written modalities—listening, speaking, reading, and writing

INFORMATION FOR

Audiologists
Speech-Language Pathologists
Students
Faculty

From this source, and is thier credits:

Al Otaiba, S., Puranik, C. S., Zilkowski, R. A., & Curran, T. (2009). Effectiveness of early phonological awareness interventions for students with speech or language impairments. The Journal of Special Education, 43, 107-128.
Source ASHA organization