Una nuova prova di competenza ortografica è stata standardizzata su un campione di 318 bambini frequentanti dalla prima alla quinta primaria. La prova è un dettato di brano, che include parole regolari e parole a trascrizione potenzialmente ambigua, consentendo la valutazione dell’ef- ficienza della procedura fonologica e lessicale di scrittura. Inoltre sono forniti i dati normativi per l’analisi dell’errore e la valutazione dell’incidenza di errori fonologici e lessicali. La prova è di agile somministrazione ed ha proprietà psicometriche soddisfacenti, rivelandosi un valido strumento di valutazione delle competenze ortografiche. Esempi di utilizzo del test per lo studio dell’acquisi- zione della scrittura e della disortografia evolutiva sono riportati.

Nel corso dei primi anni di scolarizzazione il bambino è impegnato per la maggior parte del tempo in attività di scrittura. È quindi importante poter valutare il grado di apprendimento delle competenze ortografiche e intervenire, in presenza di difficoltà, con un trattamento mirato. Sulla base del modello teorico a due vie, il test DDO-2 permette di valutare le capacità di scrittura lessicale e sub lessicale in bambini della scuola primaria e secondaria di primo grado, attraverso un dettato di 160 stimoli suddivisi in quattro sezioni in base alla categoria di parole proposte. Questa nuova edizione presenta inoltre una versione breve del test (60 stimoli), uno strumento di somministrazione più agile che rispetta i principi di costruzione e attendibilità della versione integrale. Il DDO-2 consente di effettuare lo scoring automatico tramite il software scaricabile dal sito http://risorseonline.erickson.it/, che fornisce una valutazione sia della prestazione complessiva, sia delle prestazioni ai singoli subset di stimoli dettati.

Cognitive dysfunction frequently occurs in aphasic patients and primarily compromises linguistic skills: patients suffering from severe aphasia show heterogeneous performance in basic cognition. Our aim was to characterize the cognitive profiles of patients with severe aphasia and to determine whether they also differ as to residual linguistic abilities. We examined 189 patients with severe aphasia with standard language tests and with the CoBaGA (Cognitive Test Battery for Global Aphasia), a battery of non-verbal tests that assesses a wide range of cognitive domains such as attention, executive functions and intelligence and memory, visual/auditory recognition and visual-spatial abilities. We also examined 20 patients longitudinally to assess their improvement in cognitive skills after speech therapy. Three different sub-groups of patients with different types and severity of cognitive impairment were evidenced. Sub-groups differed as to residual linguistic skills, in particular comprehension and reading-writing abilities. Attention and reasoning/executive function improved after language rehabilitation. This study highlights the importance of an extensive evaluation of cognitive functions in patients with severe aphasia.

Studies investigating the interaction between lexical and sublexical information in a developmental context are rare and mainly focussed on reading abilities. The present study investi- gated the interaction between the lexical and sublexical spelling procedures by studying the effects of orthographic neighborhood on pseudoword spelling in Italian primary school children. A spell- ing-to-dictation task was administered to 63 typically developing children: 31 attending third grade and 32 attending fifth grade. Stimuli were pseudowords derived from high- or low-frequency words by changing either the first (early diverging pseudoword) or the fourth letter (late diverging pseudo- word). The stimuli varied also for length (short vs. long). Results highlighted facilitatory lexical effects on pseudoword spelling. Long pseudowords were spelled as accurately as short stimuli if derived from high-frequency based words. Furthermore, early diverging pseudowords, if derived from high-frequency words, were spelled more accurately than other types of stimuli. The results supported the view that, similarly to what predicted for opaque orthographies by current models of spelling, lexical information is exploited also by young learners of a transparent orthography such as Italian.

Although developmental dyslexia is often referred to as a cross-modal disturbance, tests of different modalities using the same stimuli are lacking. We compared the performance of 23 children with dyslexia and 42 chronologically matched control readers on reading versus repetition tasks and visual versus audi- tory lexical decision using the same stimuli. With respect to control readers, children with dyslexia were impaired only on stimuli in the visual modality; they had no deficit on the repetition and auditory lexical decision tasks. By applying the rate-amount model (Faust et al., 1999), we showed that performance of children with dyslexia on visual (but not auditory) tasks was associated with that of control readers by a linear relationship (with a 1.78 slope), suggesting that a global factor accounts for visual (but not auditory) task performance. We conclude that the processing of linguistic stimuli in the visual and auditory modalities is carried out by independent processes and that dyslexic children have a selective deficit in the visual modality

We examined how whole-word lexical information and knowledge of distributional properties of orthography interact in children's spelling. High- versus low-frequency words, which included inconsistently spelled segments occurring more or less frequently in the orthography, were used in two experiments: (a) word spelling; (b) lexical priming of pseudoword spelling. Participants were 1st-, 2nd-, and 4th-grade Italian children. Word spelling showed sensitivity to the distributional properties of orthography in all children: accuracy in spelling uncommon transcription segments emerged progressively as a function of word frequency and schooling. Lexical priming effects emerged as a function of age. When related primes contained an uncommon segment, 2nd- and 4th-graders preferred uncommon segments than common ones in spelling target pseudowords, thus inverting the response trend found in the control condition. A smaller but significant effect was present in 1st- graders, who, unlike 2nd- and 4th-graders, still preferred common segments, only slightly increasing the use of uncommon ones. A larger priming effect emerged for high-frequency primes than low-frequency ones. Results indicate that children learning to spell in a transparent orthography are sensitive to the distributional properties of the orthography. However, whole-word lexical representations are also used, with larger effects in more skilled pupils.

This study examined the ability to master lexical processing and use knowledge of the relative frequency of sound–spelling mappings in both reading and spelling. Twenty-four dyslexic and dysgraphic children and 86 typically developing readers were followed longitudinally in 3rd and 5th grades. Effects of word regularity, word frequency, and probability of sound–spelling mappings were examined in two experimental tasks: (a) spelling to dictation; and (b) orthographic judgment. Dyslexic children showed larger regularity and frequency effects than controls in both tasks. Sensitivity to distributional information of sound–spelling mappings was already detected by third grade, indicating early acquisition even in children with dyslexia. Although with notable differences, knowledge of the relative frequencies of sound–spelling mapping influenced both reading and spelling. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and empirical implications.

Frutto del lavoro dei maggiori esperti nel settore, grazie alla sua impostazione teorico-operativa, questa guida presenta non solo le caratteristiche della disortografia, della disgrafia e delle difficoltà di scrittura e le ricadute in ambito scolastico e non, ma anche le strategie per compensare le abilità deficitarie e gli strumenti di intervento didattico e psicoeducativo. Il volume si articola in 4 sezioni che guidano il lettore nelle diverse fasi che caratterizzano il lavoro con gli alunni: - CONOSCERE, OSSERVARE E VALUTARE. - PROGRAMMARE E AGIRE. - RIFLETTERE E COMPRENDERE. - ALLEARSI E CONDIVIDERE. IN OGNI CAPITOLO È INOLTRE POSSIBILE TROVARE: - una linea temporale sequenziale che illustra in quale fase si collocano le proposte presentate nel capitolo - una mappa concettuale che anticipa e organizza i contenuti - numerosi esempi di caso - approfondimenti dalla ricerca scientifica - le interviste «Alcune domande all’esperto...» - i consigli per la didattica in classe - la sintesi dei contenuti presentati nel capitolo. L'offerta del volume si arricchisce di nuove ulteriori risorse disponibili online.

Italian sixth graders, with and without dyslexia, read pseudowords and low-frequency words that include high-frequency morphemes better than stimuli not including any morpheme. The present study assessed whether morphemes affect (1) younger children, with and without dyslexia; (2) spelling as well as reading; and (3) words with low-frequency morphemes. Two groups of third graders (16 children with dyslexia and dysorthography and 16 age-matched typically developing children) read aloud and spelt to dictation pseudowords and words. Pseudowords included (1) root + suffix in not existing combinations (e.g. lampadista, formed by lampad-, 'lamp', and -ista, '-ist') and (2) orthographic sequences not corresponding to any Italian root or suffix (e.g. livonosto). Words had low frequency and included: (1) root + suffix, both of high frequency (e.g. bestiale, 'beastly'); (2) root + suffix, both of low frequency (e.g. asprigno, 'rather sour'); and (3) simple words (e.g. insulso, 'vapid'). Children with dyslexia and dysorthography were less accurate than typically developing children. Root + suffix pseudowords were read and spelt more accurately than non-morphological pseudowords by both groups. Morphologically complex (root + suffix) words were read and spelt better than simple words. However, task interacted with morphology: reading was not facilitated by low-frequency morphemes. We conclude that children acquiring a transparent orthography exploit morpheme-based reading and spelling to face difficulties in processing long unfamiliar stimuli. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Objective: To characterize neuropsychiatric symptoms in a large group of individuals with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to correlate these symptoms with demographic, clinical, and functional features. Methods: The Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), a frequently used scale to assess behavioral, emotional, and motivational disorders in persons with neurological diseases, was administered to a sample of 120 persons with severe TBI. Controls were 77 healthy subjects. Results: A wide range of neuropsychiatric symptoms was found in the population with severe TBI: apathy (42%), irritability (37%), dysphoria/depressed mood (29%), disinhibition (28%), eating disturbances (27%), and agitation (24%). A clear relationship was also found with other demographic and clinical variables. Conclusion: Neuropsychiatric disorders constitute an important part of the comorbidity in populations with se- vere TBI. Our study emphasizes the importance of integrating an overall assessment of cognitive disturbances with a specific neuropsychiatric evaluation to improve clinical understanding and treatment of persons with TBI.

Italian children with surface dyslexia and dysgraphia show defective orthographic lexical processing in both reading and spelling. It is unclear whether this parallelism is due to impairment of separate orthographic input and output lexicons or to a unique defective lexicon. The main aim of the present study was to compare the single- vs dual- lexicon accounts in dyslexic/dysgraphic children (and in normal but younger children). In the first study, nine Italian children with surface dyslexia and dysgraphia judged the orthographic correctness (input lexicon) of their phonologically plausible misspellings (output lexicon) and of phonologically plausible spellings experimentally introduced for words they consistently spelt correctly. The children were generally impaired in recognizing phonologically plausible misspellings. Parallel deficits in reading and spelling also emerged: children were more impaired in judging items they consistently misspelt and more accurate in judging items they always spelt correctly. In a second study, younger normal children with reading/spelling ability similar to the dyslexic/dysgraphic children in the first study (but younger) were examined. The results confirmed a close parallelism between the orthographic lexical representations used for reading and spelling. Overall, findings support the hypothesis that a single orthographic lexicon is responsible for reading and spelling performance in both dyslexic/dysgraphic and normal (but younger) children.

Introduction. Although spelling difficulties are constantly associated with developmental dyslexia, they have been largely neglected by the majority of studies in this area. This study analyzes spelling impairments in developmental dyslexia across school grades in Italian, a language with high grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence. Methods. The performances of 33 Italian dyslexic children attending Grades 3 and 5 were compared with those of age-matched control participants. Writing abilities were investigated through a spelling test that included regular words with one-sound-to-one-letter correspondence, regular words requiring the application of context-sensitive conversion rules, words with unpredictable transcription and nonwords with one-sound-to-one-letter correspondence. Results. Both accuracy and error analyses indicate that the spelling impairment assumes different characteristics at different grades: Grade 3 children showed an undifferentiated spelling deficit (involving regular words, regular nonwords and words with unpredictable spelling), whereas the fifth graders were prevalently impaired in writing words with unpredictable transcription. The error analysis confirms these results, with third graders producing a high rate of all types of errors (i.e., phonologically plausible, simple and context-sensitive conversion errors), whereas most errors committed by fifth graders were phonologically plausible. Conclusions. Results are coherent with the hypothesis that dyslexic children learning a shallow orthography suffer from delayed acquisition and some fragility of the sub-word-level routine,

Language delay is considered a frequent antecedent of literacy problems and both may be linked to phonological impairment. However, while several studies have examined the relationship between language delay and reading impairment, relatively few have focused on spelling. In this study, spelling performance of 28 children with developmental dyslexia (DD), 14 children with a history of language delay (LD), and 14 children without (NoLD) and 28 control participants were examined. Spelling was investigated by a writing to dictation task that included orthographically regular stimuli (word and non-words), as well as words with unpredictable transcription. Results indicated that all dyslexic participants underperformed compared to controls on both regular and unpredictable transcription stimuli, but LD performance was generally the worst. Moreover, spelling impairment assumed different characteristics in LD and NoLD children. LD children were more sensitive to acoustic-to-phonological variables, showing relevant failure especially on stimuli containing geminate consonants but also on polysyllabic stimuli and those containing non-continuant consonants. Error analysis confirmed these results, with LD children producing a higher rate of phonological errors respect to NoLD children and controls. Results were coherent with the hypothesis that among dyslexic children, those with previous language delay have more severe spelling deficit, suffering from defective orthographic lexical acquisition together with long-lasting phonological difficulties.

Although spelling difficulties are constantly associated with developmental dyslexia, they have been largely neglected by the majority of studies in this area. This study analyzes spelling impairments in developmental dyslexia across school grades in Italian, a language with high grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence. Methods: The performances of 33 Italian dyslexic children attending Grades 3 and 5 were compared with those of age-matched control participants. Writing abilities were investi- gated through a spelling test that included regular words with one-sound-to-one-letter correspondence, regular words requiring the application of context-sensitive conversion rules, words with unpredictable transcription and nonwords with one-sound-to-one-letter correspondence. Results: Both accuracy and error analyses indicate that the spelling impairment assumes different characteristics at different grades: Grade 3 children showed an undifferentiated spelling deficit (involving regular words, regular nonwords and words with unpredictable spelling), whereas the fifth graders were prevalently impaired in writing words with unpredictable transcription. The error analysis confirms these results, with third graders producing a high rate of all types of errors (i.e., phonologically plausible, simple and context-sensitive conversion errors), whereas most errors committed by fifth graders were phonologically plausible. Conclusions: Results are coherent with the hypothesis that dyslexic children learning a shallow orthography suffer from delayed acquisition and some fragility of the sub-word level routine, together with a severe and long-lasting deficit of orthographic lexical acquisition.

This study analyzed the spelling skills of Italian children as a function of school experience. We examined the writing performances of 465 first- to eighth- grade normal readers on a spelling test that included regular words, context-sensitive regular words, words with ambiguous transcription, and regular pseudowords. Based on the dual-route model (DRM), the regularity and orthographic complexity effects were considered to probe sublexical processing while the lexicality effect was taken to mark lexical processing. The analysis of spelling performances indicated that, among Italian children, both lexical and sublexical procedures are available since the first year of schooling. However, the two procedures showed different developmental trends. The DRM appears as a useful theoretical framework to describe the devel- opment of spelling in a relatively regular language such as Italian

In opaque orthographies knowledge of morphological information helps in achieving reading and spelling accuracy. In transparent orthographies with regular print-to-sound correspondences, such as Italian, the mappings of orthography onto phonology and phonology onto orthography are in principle sufficient to read and spell most words. The present study aimed to investigate the role of morphology in the reading and spelling accuracy of Italian children as a function of school experience to determine whether morphological facilitation was present in children learning a transparent orthography. The reading and spelling performances of 15 third-grade and 15 fifth-grade typically developing children were analyzed. Children read aloud and spelled both low-frequency words and pseudowords. Low-frequency words were manipulated for the presence of morphological structure (morphemic words vs non-derived words). Morphemic words could also vary for the frequency (high vs low) of roots and suffixes. Pseudo-words were made up of either a real root and a real derivational suffix in a combination that does not exist in the Italian language or had no morphological constituents. Results showed that, in Italian, morphological information is a useful resource for both reading and spelling. Typically developing children benefitted from the presence of morphological structure when they read and spelled pseudowords; however, in processing low-frequency words, morphology facilitated reading but not spelling. These findings are discussed in terms of morpho-lexical access and successful cooperation between lexical and sublexical processes in reading and spelling.