Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Therapy, School of Health Sciences Kyushu University of health and welfare
Abstract
Herein, we present a with development dyslexia whose writing skills were analyzed in detail, and discuss future support options. The patient was a 10 year-old boy who was a found grader attending a regular elementary school. The results of the WISC-III, K-ABC, ITPA, PVT-R, DTVP, diagnostic reading tests and STRAW showed that the patient had difficulty writing kanji characters despite the absence of overall intellectual, psychological or social disorders. Hence, the writing skills of the patient were analyzed by asking the patient to write common kanji characters and differentiate the character shapes of kanji characters. The visual information processing process that is required for learning to write kanji characters involves: 1) visual recognition of model kanji characters; 2) visual memory and retention; 3) memory recall of kanji forms. The patient was able to differentiate the character shapes of kanji characters and recognize individual differences; however, his spatial arrangement skills were low. Furthermore, the results suggested that he had difficulty retaining visual memory, and he was not able to accurately recognize kanji characters that are visual pictorial forms. Therefore, it was deduced that the patient could not accurately ascertain kanji forms and had difficulty writing kanji characters. Although the patient was able to differentiate similar character shapes, assistive technology may be an effective auxiliary technique for alleviating learning difficulties due to dysgraphia
