nd slow
handwriting). However, the Connelly et al. population was different from
the current cohort in that they could produce compositions that were age
appropriate in terms of ideas and development, sentence structure and
organization, unity, and coherence scales of the WOLD (Wechsler,
1996)--all areas of weakness for the students described here. As shown
by Puranik et al. (2007, with a younger cohort), problems with spelling
and transcription combined with wider problems with language led to very
poor performance in writing.
Given the relationships between the different variables and the
predictions derived from previous studies, we used path analysis to
provide estimates of the magnitude and significance of hypothesized
causal connections between sets of variables. Our first model explored
the potential interactions between concurrent measures. The best-fit
model included direct effects of vocabulary, spelling, and writing
fluency, with reading fluency (a timed measure of reading decoding)
having an indirect effect through spelling and writing fluency. The
concurrent model confirms both the effects of semantic factors (as
measured by vocabulary) and phonological factors (as measured by
spelling), and suggests an independent contribution of writing fluency.
There has been a longstanding concern about the information
processing constraints experienced by children with SLI (Ellis Weismer
& Hesketh, 1996; Montgomery, 2000), and their reduced performance on
tasks requiring quick and accurate performance (Leonard et al., 2007).
Measures of speed of writing and reading fluency are both significantly
related--either directly or indirectly--to text production. These
deficits may reflect reduced performance in both verbal working memory
(reading fluency) and processing speed (speed of writing; see Leonard et
al.). Yet the highly significant relationship in the current study
between the two (.57) suggests that the underlying factor may be the
ability to coordinate and efficiently manage different information, and
this limits children's text production. This interpretation would
also be consistent with the difficulties experienced by children with
language impairment in monitoring and editing their written productions
(Scott, !999). As long as translating continues to place heavy cognitive
demands on writing, management of planning will be impaired.
In our second model we explored the longitudinal predictors for the
participants' writing performance at age 16. This model identified
direct effects of reading, spelling, and writing at age 14 on writing at
age 16. These data demonstrate the ways in which both phonological and
morphological literacy measures come to the fore in the writing
performance for these students. As in the regression models,
nonphonological factors were also evident and, unlike the literacy
measures, their impact was traced back to age 8. Vocabulary appears to
provide an indication of the semantic knowledge which supports both
writing at age 11 and sentence formulation at age 14. Over time, both
reading and writing skills mediate the impact of oral language.
The concurrent and the longitudinal models both provide evidence to
support specific student-based factors that impinge on the production of
written text, and offer scope for targeted and strategic interventions
(Troia, 2006) and interventions which could compensate for text
production difficulties (MacArthur, in press). It is unlikely that these
factors alone explain the relative decline in writing performance. As
the change scores demonstrate, only writing fluency predicted
change--and this factor accounted for 29% of the variance. An important
question remains about the support in writing that is provided once
students enter secondary school, both to maintain current levels of text
production and to enhance their capacity to produce texts closer to
expected targets. Support for those who struggle at this phase of
education in England is "uneven" (Office for Standards in
Education, Ofsted, 2007, [paragraph] 75, page 31), and differentiation
of the curr