Pauses in the dynamics of handwriting production of French students with dyslexia: another evidence of their persistent difficulties

Résumé En

Despite the persistent difficulties of people with dyslexia concerning writing, few studies examine the impact of dyslexia on the dynamic aspects of written text production. Our objective is to examine the written production of students with dyslexia (N=22), compared to matched control students (N=21), taking into consideration on-line indicators. They were asked to produce spontaneous narrative and expository texts. The written texts (N = 86) were collected using Eye and Pen© software with digitizing tablets. Results show significant differences between the two groups concerning bursts and some location and duration of pauses. If previous works conclude that the spelling difficulties of university students do not impact the transcription process anymore, which means that they have no more effects on the dynamics of writing, and thus on writing fluency, our study qualifies these conclusions. Indeed, results show that students with dyslexia have an atypical and problematic word transcription in terms of on-line indicators: they produce less words per minute, display shorter bursts (number of units written without a pause), make longer pauses duration and more specifically, inside and before words and preceding punctuation signs. Allocation of cognitive resources is still partially altered by cognitive obstacles, and the transcription process is slowed down and disorganizes other high-level cognitive operations.