Generalisation after treatment of acquired spelling impairments: A review

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive review of treatment studies of acquired dysgraphia and the occurrence of generalisation after this treatment. The aim is to examine what determines the occurrence of generalisation by investigating the link between the level of impairment, the method of treatment, and the outcome of therapy. We present the outcomes of treatment with regard to generalisation in 40 treatment studies. We derive general principles of generalisation which provide us with a better understanding of the mechanism of generalisation: (1) Direct treatment effects on representations or processes; (2) interactive processing and summation of activation; and (3) strategies and compensatory skills. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the cognitive processes used for spelling. Finally, we provide suggestions for the direction of further research into this important area, as a better understanding of the mechanism of generalisation could maximise treatment effects for an individual with acquired dysgraphia.

Keywords:

• Acquired dysgraphia
• Generalisation
• Treatment
• Spelling

View correction statement:

Corrigendum

Notes

¹Both “agraphia” and “dysgraphia” are used throughout the literature of acquired impairments of written word production. In the current paper the term “dysgraphia” is chosen, as it is most frequently used.

²In the literature on this topic, the terms spelling and writing are both used to describe different aspects of “written word production”. Throughout the current paper the overarching term “spelling” is chosen to describe this process.

³It should be noted that it is vital to check that the standardised tests do not include any of the treated items, however, this is often not verified.

⁴Note that this is not restricted to interactive models of spelling – a route for spelling via the phonological output lexicon is also possible in models like that depicted in Figure 1.