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The role of executive functions and transcription skills in writing: a cross-sectional study across 7 years of schooling

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Abstract

Findings around the cognitive resources needed to compose text have helped shape current models of writing. Some of these models predict that text generation is constrained by two groups of skills: transcription (i.e., spelling and handwriting) and executive functions (EFs). While the constraining role of transcription on text generation is robust, the relationship between writing and EFs is more scarce. Some studies suggest that the impact of EFs on writing development is not only direct, but also indirect, through transcription skills. However, few studies have analyzed these effects over a sufficiently wide developmental period. In this paper, we examined transcription and EF skills in a large sample of beginner (G2), intermediate (G4), and upper-intermediate (G8) children (N = 1337). Each participant produced a narrative and an opinion essay. In addition, we collected measures of the low-level EFs of inhibition and updating of working memory, as well as measures of handwriting fluency and spelling accuracy. Results showed that EFs impacted text generation directly and indirectly via transcription skills, especially via handwriting. Transcription skills constrained text generation across grade levels and its weight was similar from the youngest through to the oldest age group. We conclude that EFs support low-level writing skills, as well as key processes involved in children’s text composing (i.e., knowledge-telling processes). Relevant educational implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. There is an ongoing debate over whether the three core low-level EFs, inhibition, updating of WM, and cognitive flexibility are completely discernable throughout development. Compelling evidence has been found for cognitive flexibility to greatly overlap with other low-level EFs, particularly inhibition, in children (e.g., Drijbooms et al., 2015; van der Ven, Kroesbergen, Boom, & Leseman, 2013). Hence, we opted for targeting only inhibition and updating of WM.

  2. Monoparental families were adjusted accordingly (i.e., multiplied by 2).

  3. Prompt-type was excluded as a covariate for the words-per-clause measure in the narrative texts, when spelling was the mediator,, as it did not explain any additional variance and it worsened model fit considerably.

  4. A ΔCFI of less that .01 between a more constrained and a less- or unconstrained model indicates that the models fit the data similarly well and is preferred over the ΔChi2 test, particularly in models applied to large samples (Cheung & Rensvold, 2002; Meade, Johnson, & Braddy, 2008; Wang & Wang, 2012).

  5. Some uses of and in children’s spoken and written discourse may not equate to adults’ use as a conjunction; thus, coordination in children could be easily overestimated. Conversely, subordination may be underestimated, since several children use and as well as juxtaposition where an adult would use a subordinating conjunction (see Aparici, 2010 for a detailed overview).

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Grants 2015ACUP 00175 to Dr. Naymé Salas and Grant EDU2015-64798-R to Teresa Ribas. We would like to thank all the children and teachers who participated in the study. We are also grateful to Mariona Pascual for her help in collecting and managing a lot of the data reported here, and to Dr. Gabriel Liberman for his guidance in the statistical approach.

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  1. Dept. de Didàctica de la Llengua i la Literatura, i de les Ciències Socials, Facultat de Ciències de l’Educació, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Campus de Bellaterra, Edifici G-5, 08193, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain

    Naymé Salas & Sara Silvente

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  1. Naymé Salas
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Salas, N., Silvente, S. The role of executive functions and transcription skills in writing: a cross-sectional study across 7 years of schooling. Read Writ 33, 877–905 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-019-09979-y

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