ildren with SLI where a
relative improvement in the production of written story composition has
been noted (Fey et al., 2004). These differences are important to
address. The decreases in student performance on written measures may
reflect specific language difficulties. For typically developing
children, increasing language and literacy skills support later
development of writing; for those with continued difficulties these
resources are not available. In conjunction it is important to consider
the specific support provided to children when developing their written
language skills. This decrease in writing skills occurred at the time
(age 11) when, in the United Kingdom, it is expected that students have
mastered the basic skills in reading and writing, have moved towards the
analysis of genres, are writing with technical accuracy, and able to
organize text into planned and coherent sequences (Department for
Children, Schools and Families, n.d.)--a major challenge for the
students in this study.
WOLD (Wechsler, 1996) provided the tool for comparing performance
on writing dimensions over time. Results on the WOLD subscales at age 16
were consistent with assessments at previous points in development
(Dockrell, Lindsay, Connelly, et al., 2007; Mackie, 2007): Performance
was reduced across all subscales, but the poorest performance was
evident in measures of sentence structure, ideas and development, and
vocabulary. The factor analysis of the WOLD subscales provided evidence
that at this point in development, the students' written work could
be captured by a single dimension. This differs from the patterns at age
11 (Dockrell, Lindsay, Connelly, et al., 2007) and age 14 (Dockrell
& Connelly, 2007), where two different dimensions underpinned
performance on the WOLD: semantics and rules. This single factor for the
WOLD is, however, consistent with data for younger (age 11) typically
developing children (Connelly & Dockrell, 2008) and suggests that
for students with a history of SLI the coordination of idea generation
and sentence production and grammar is an extended developmental
Despite the apparent coordination of the two dimensions,
difficulties in relation to form (spelling and handwriting), and content
generation still posed major difficulties for the students in our study.
Texts produced were short with frequent spelling errors. Previous
research has failed to consider writing fluency for students with SLI,
and current data indicate that shorter texts are associated with reduced
levels of handwriting fluency. Indeed, the cohort's handwriting
fluency was equivalent to the average obtained for students some 7 years
younger (Graham et al., 1998). This is consistent with slow production
of text, as evidenced by words produced per minute. The less fluent
students were also more likely to show decreases in their writing
standard scores over time.
Regression analyses revealed that at age 16 the significant
concurrent predictors of text production were spelling and vocabulary.
The importance of vocabulary as a key predictor of text production at
this age extends work with younger students which has identified
limitations in text generation and reduced levels of word use and
lexical diversity (Fey et al., 2004; Scott & Windsor, 2000) and
semantic content (Bishop & Clarkson, 2003) as critical limiting
factors for children with SLI. The continuity of the importance of
vocabulary as a determinant of text quality for this cohort of children
(Dockrell, Lindsay, Palikara, et al., 2007) adds further weight to the
view that vocabulary provides a building block for written language.
The poor spelling skills of the participants were evident both in
their written text productions and when assessing their single word
spellings. At age 11, the participants' writing levels were
mediated by their reading levels. The point of fracture has moved, and
on the surface appears similar to difficulties exhibited by young adults
with dyslexia (Connelly et al., 2006), where writing was constrained by
transcription skills (in the form of poor spelling a