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Symposium; Reading & written expression

Saturday stream 3 Session 09.00 - 11.10 Length 25 minutes

Error Analysis of the expository Discourse of College Writers with and without Disabilities: A Multidimensional Analysis

Chris Coleman, Noel Gregg, Robert Stennett, Donald Rubin, Mark Davis

University of Georgia ngregg@coe.uga.edu

Abstract

Recently, important questions have been raised regarding the consequences of dyslexia and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD), in co-existence with one another, on cognitive functioning and reading and writing behaviors. Frith (1999), for example, recommends further explanation of a possible "common effect on systems involved in phonology and in executive functions." This research begins to address such issues through error analysis of the spontaneous expository writing of four groups of college writers: (1) students with dyslexia (n=100); (2) students with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (n=50); (3) students with dyslexia and AD/HD (n=50); and (4) students with no documented disability (n=100). All errors were quantified, classified (e.g., as related primarily to spelling, morphology, syntax, punctuation, or performance monitoring), and analyzed. Regression analyses and t-tests were used to compare performances and patterns across the four populations.