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Cognitive Neuropsychology 2017Developmental deficits in the acquisition of writing skills (developmental dysgraphias) are common and have significant consequences, yet these deficits have received...
Developmental deficits in the acquisition of writing skills (developmental dysgraphias) are common and have significant consequences, yet these deficits have received relatively little attention from researchers. We offer a framework for studying developmental dysgraphias (including both spelling and handwriting deficits), arguing that research should be grounded in theories describing normal cognitive writing mechanisms and the acquisition of these mechanisms. We survey the current state of knowledge concerning developmental dysgraphia, discussing potential proximal and distal causes. One conclusion emerging from this discussion is that developmental writing deficits are diverse in their manifestations and causes. We suggest an agenda for research on developmental dysgraphia, and suggest that pursuing this agenda may contribute not only to a better understanding of developmental writing impairment, but also to a better understanding of normal writing mechanisms and their acquisition. Finally, we provide a brief introduction to the subsequent articles in this special issue on developmental dysgraphia.
Topics: Adult; Agraphia; Behavioral Research; Cognition; Handwriting; Humans; Reading
PubMed: 28906176
DOI: 10.1080/02643294.2017.1369016 -
Handbook of Clinical Neurology 2018This chapter offers a perspective on the origin, operational definition, historic vicissitudes, and current status of Gerstmann syndrome. The main issues and controversy... (Review)
Review
This chapter offers a perspective on the origin, operational definition, historic vicissitudes, and current status of Gerstmann syndrome. The main issues and controversy accompanying Gerstmann syndrome throughout the years are reviewed. The clinical picture of Gerstmann syndrome as it emerges from a series of modern-day pure cases is described. In current clinical practice, a diagnosis of Gerstmann syndrome indicates the concomitant presence of four acquired symptoms: finger agnosia, acalculia, left-right disorientation, and agraphia. Finally, based on empiric work conducted in recent years, the chapter concludes with a new interpretation of Gerstmann syndrome. If seen as an instance of intraparietal disconnection, this classic parietal syndrome will acquire fresh clinical and theoretic significance.
Topics: Gerstmann Syndrome; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans
PubMed: 29519471
DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-444-63622-5.00020-6 -
International Journal of Language &... Nov 2020Every language has certain specific idiosyncrasies in its writing system. Cross-linguistic analyses of alexias and agraphias are fundamental to understand commonalities...
BACKGROUND
Every language has certain specific idiosyncrasies in its writing system. Cross-linguistic analyses of alexias and agraphias are fundamental to understand commonalities and differences in the brain organization of written language. Few reports of alexias and agraphias in the Spanish language are currently available.
AIMS
To analyse the clinical manifestations of alexias and agraphias in Spanish, and the effect of demographic variables.
METHODS & PROCEDURES
Spanish versions of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) and Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE) were used for language assessment. Lesion localization was obtained by using computed axial tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. The final sample included 200 patients: 195 (97.5%) right-handed and five (2.5%) left-handed; 119 men and 81 women with a mean age of 57.37 years (SD = 15.56), education of 13.52 years (SD = 4.08), and mean time post-onset of 6.58 months (SD = 12.94). Using the WAB, four quotients were calculated: aphasia quotient (AQ), reading-writing quotient (RWQ), language quotient (LQ) and cortical quotient (CQ).
OUTCOMES & RESULTS
The types of aphasia were: global = 11 patients (5.5%), Broca = 31 (15.5%), Wernicke = 30 (15.0%), conduction = 22 (11.0%), transcortical sensory = 17 (8.5%), transcortical motor = 3 (1.5%), amnesic or anomic = 54 (27.0%) and mixed non-fluent = 32 (16.0%). The degree of oral and written language impairment differed across the various aphasia types. Most severe reading and writing difficulties were found in global, mixed non-fluent and transcortical motor aphasia; fewer difficulties were observed in amnesic, Broca and conduction aphasia. The severity of the written language impairments paralleled the severity of the oral language disturbances. Age negatively, while schooling positively, correlated with the scores in reading and writing tests. No effect of sex and time since onset was found.
CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS
In Spanish-speaking aphasia patients, difficulties in reading and writing are similar to oral language difficulties. This similarity of performance is mostly based on severity rather than the participants' patterns of errors. What this paper adds What is already known on the subject There is limited information about alexia and agraphia in Spanish. What this paper adds to existing knowledge An extensive study with a large sample of patients. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The study contributes to the clinical management of patients with reading and writing disturbances.
Topics: Agraphia; Brain; Chile; Databases, Factual; Dyslexia, Acquired; Female; Humans; Language; Language Tests; Linguistics; Male; Middle Aged; Reading; Tomography, X-Ray Computed
PubMed: 32735061
DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12566 -
American Family Physician Nov 2019Academic underachievement, such as failing a class and the threat of being held back because of academic issues, is common. Family physicians can provide support and... (Review)
Review
Academic underachievement, such as failing a class and the threat of being held back because of academic issues, is common. Family physicians can provide support and guidance for families as they approach their child's unique academic challenges. Specific learning disabilities are a group of learning disorders (e.g., dyscalculia, dysgraphia, dyslexia) that impede a child's ability to learn. Understanding standard educational terms; looking for medical, family, and social risk factors associated with academic underachievement; and investigating the medical differential for academic underachievement can help direct the family to appropriate care. The physician can provide medical documentation to support an individualized education program evaluation and address risk factors that schools may not be aware of or cannot assess. The family physician can support children and families by understanding the connection between risk factors, medical and educational evaluations, and educational resources.
Topics: Child; Family Relations; Humans; Learning Disabilities; Physician's Role; Physicians, Family; Risk Factors; Schools
PubMed: 31730315
DOI: No ID Found -
Scientific Reports Dec 2020Dysgraphia, a disorder affecting the written expression of symbols and words, negatively impacts the academic results of pupils as well as their overall well-being. The...
Dysgraphia, a disorder affecting the written expression of symbols and words, negatively impacts the academic results of pupils as well as their overall well-being. The use of automated procedures can make dysgraphia testing available to larger populations, thereby facilitating early intervention for those who need it. In this paper, we employed a machine learning approach to identify handwriting deteriorated by dysgraphia. To achieve this goal, we collected a new handwriting dataset consisting of several handwriting tasks and extracted a broad range of features to capture different aspects of handwriting. These were fed to a machine learning algorithm to predict whether handwriting is affected by dysgraphia. We compared several machine learning algorithms and discovered that the best results were achieved by the adaptive boosting (AdaBoost) algorithm. The results show that machine learning can be used to detect dysgraphia with almost 80% accuracy, even when dealing with a heterogeneous set of subjects differing in age, sex and handedness.
Topics: Adolescent; Agraphia; Algorithms; Case-Control Studies; Child; Data Accuracy; Female; Handwriting; Humans; Machine Learning; Male
PubMed: 33299092
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-78611-9 -
Handbook of Clinical Neurology 2018The development and change of knowledge on the function of the parietal lobe from the second half of the 19th century to the early 1970s are reviewed. Motor and... (Review)
Review
The development and change of knowledge on the function of the parietal lobe from the second half of the 19th century to the early 1970s are reviewed. Motor and somatosensory functions were initially localized in a broad frontoparietal region. At the beginning of the 20th century the motor cortex was restricted to the posterior frontal lobe. The separate attribution of somatosensory functions to the parietal lobe was initially based on anatomic considerations, but mostly on localized bodily sensations elicited by electric stimulation in awake patients. Patients and nonhuman primates with anterior parietal damage showed deficits in somatic sensation (tactile discrimination and position sense, less markedly pain and thermal sensitivity). Somatosensory evoked potentials demonstrated in all mammals that the body is orderly and multiply represented in the anterior parietal cortex. The parietal lobe was divided into an anterior and a posterior cortex (PPC). The PPC is particularly developed in primates, where it includes a superior and an inferior parietal lobule. The PPC was initially thought to be a higher-order region for somatosensory information processing, but its functional specialization proved soon to be greater and more complex. PPC damage in humans gives rise to a variety of neuropsychologic disorders: pain asymbolia, sensory extinction, spatial neglect, optic ataxia and limb apraxia, alexia and agraphia. Single-neuron recordings in freely behaving monkeys furnished the complementary information that the PPC is involved in body-environment interactions, for visual exploration and hand use as a sensor and a tool. The PPC is now believed to underpin higher-order processes of sensory inputs, multisensory and sensorimotor integration, spatial attention, intention, and the conjoint representation of external space and the body. The symptoms in which disorders of these processes manifest after PPC damage are considerably different in humans and nonhuman primates.
Topics: Animals; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; Humans; Neurology; Neurophysiology; Parietal Lobe
PubMed: 29519464
DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-444-63622-5.00001-2 -
Journal of Alzheimer's Disease : JAD 2021Agraphia is a typical feature in the clinical course of Alzheimer's disease (AD).
BACKGROUND
Agraphia is a typical feature in the clinical course of Alzheimer's disease (AD).
OBJECTIVE
Assess the differences between AD and normal aging as regards kinematographic features of handwriting and elucidate writing deficits in AD.
METHODS
The study included 23 patients with AD (78.09 years/SD = 7.12; MMSE 21.39/SD = 3.61) and 34 healthy controls (75.56 years/SD = 5.85; MMSE 29.06/SD = 0.78). Both groups performed alphabetical and non-alphabetical writing tasks. The kinematographic assessment included the average number of inversions per stroke (NIV; number of peaks in the velocity profile in a single up or down stroke), percentage of automated segments, frequency (average number of strokes per second), writing pressure, and writing velocity on paper.
RESULTS
A total of 14 patients showed overt writing difficulties reflected by omissions or substitutions of letters. AD patients showed less automated movements (as measured by NIV), lower writing velocity, and lower frequency of up-and-down strokes in non-alphabetical as well as in alphabetical writing. In the patient group, Spearman correlation analysis between overt writing performance and NIV was significant. That means patients who had less errors in writing a sentence showed a higher automaticity in handwriting. The correctness of alphabetical writing and some kinematographic measures in writing non-alphabetical material reached excellent diagnostic values in ROC analyses. There was no difference in the application of pressure on the pen between patients and controls.
CONCLUSION
Writing disorders are multi-componential in AD and not strictly limited to one processing level. The slow and poorly automated execution of motor programs is not bound to alphabetical material.
Topics: Aged; Agraphia; Alzheimer Disease; Automatism; Female; Handwriting; Humans; Language Tests; Male; Neuropsychological Tests; ROC Curve; Task Performance and Analysis
PubMed: 34057089
DOI: 10.3233/JAD-210279 -
Behavioural Neurology 2019Acalculia is an acquired disorder in calculation abilities, usually associated with left posterior parietal damage. Two types of acalculic disorders are usually... (Review)
Review
Acalculia is an acquired disorder in calculation abilities, usually associated with left posterior parietal damage. Two types of acalculic disorders are usually distinguished: (1) primary acalculia or anarithmetia, where the patient presents a loss of numerical concepts (difficulties are observed both in oral and written calculations), and (2) secondary acalculia due to a different disturbance in cognition and affecting mathematical abilities. Secondary acalculias are associated with aphasia, alexia, agraphia, executive function disorders, or visuospatial difficulties. This paper is a proposal for clinical intervention to rehabilitation of acquired primary and secondary acalculias.
Topics: Cognition; Cognition Disorders; Dyscalculia; Humans; Mathematics; Neuropsychological Tests
PubMed: 31093301
DOI: 10.1155/2019/3151092 -
Neuropsychological Rehabilitation 2015This paper provides a comprehensive review of treatment studies of acquired dysgraphia and the occurrence of generalisation after this treatment. The aim is to examine... (Review)
Review
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.
Topics: Agraphia; Generalization, Psychological; Humans; Treatment Outcome
PubMed: 25403342
DOI: 10.1080/09602011.2014.983135 -
Movement Disorders : Official Journal... Oct 2014Micrographia, an abnormal reduction in writing size, is a specific behavioral deficit associated with Parkinson's disease (PD). In recent years, the availability of... (Review)
Review
Micrographia, an abnormal reduction in writing size, is a specific behavioral deficit associated with Parkinson's disease (PD). In recent years, the availability of graphic tablets has made it possible to study micrographia in unprecedented detail. Consequently, a growing number of studies show that PD patients also exhibit impaired handwriting kinematics. Is micrographia still the most characteristic feature of PD-related handwriting deficits? To answer this question, we identified studies that investigated handwriting in PD, either with conventional pencil-and-paper measures or with graphic tablets, and we reported their findings on key spatiotemporal and kinematic variables. We found that kinematic variables (velocity, fluency) differentiate better between control participants and PD patients, and between off- and on-treatment PD patients, than the traditional measure of static writing size. Although reduced writing size is an important feature of PD handwriting, the deficit is not restricted to micrographia stricto sensu. Therefore, we propose the term PD dysgraphia, which encompasses all deficits characteristic of Parkinsonian handwriting. We conclude that the computerized analysis of handwriting movements is a simple and useful tool that can contribute to both diagnosis and follow-up of PD.
Topics: Agraphia; Handwriting; Humans; Parkinson Disease; PubMed
PubMed: 25156696
DOI: 10.1002/mds.25990