{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,21]],"date-time":"2026-09-21T20:14:20Z","timestamp":1790021660321,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":54,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,17]],"date-time":"2023-01-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1673913600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title><jats:p>In individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID), efficient reading and writing skills promote social integration, self-autonomy, and independence. However, research has mainly focused on reading skills, while evidence on spelling skills is scarce and mostly on English-speaking subjects. In the present research project, we compared the spelling skills of children with intellectual disabilities (ID) learning in Italian, a regular orthography, to those of typically developing children matched for school level.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>In the first study, the performance on a Passage Dictation Test of forty-four children with ID attending regular classrooms from 4th to 8th grades (mean age\u2009=\u200912.16 years; SD\u2009=\u20091.57) were compared with controls matched for sex and grade. In the second study, a Words and Nonwords Dictation Test was administered (with stimuli varying for lexicality, orthographic complexity, regularity of transcription, and the presence of different types of phonetic-phonological difficulties) to twenty-two children with ID attending regular classrooms from 4th to 8th grades (mean age\u2009=\u200912.2 years; SD\u2009=\u20091.37) and 22 controls matched for sex and grade. In both studies, an error analysis was performed to characterize types of misspellings. Separate ANOVAs were performed on z scores.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>Children with ID generally had a lower performance than controls. In the Passage Dictation Test, they showed a higher number of phonological (and phonetic-phonological) errors than phonologically plausible ones, indicating, as a group, predominant phonological difficulties as compared to lexical-orthographic ones. In the Words and Nonwords Dictation Test, they performed poorly on regular stimuli presenting specific types of phonetic-to-phonological difficulties (geminates, non-continuant consonants) and committed more minimal distance, context-sensitive and simple conversion misspellings. However, deficits in the orthographic-lexical procedure, as indicated by a low performance in words with unpredictable spelling, were present in a high percentage of children.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title><jats:p>It is concluded that children with ID have significant spelling difficulties not confined to the orthographic process but also in phoneme-to-grapheme mapping that, in a regular orthography like Italian, should be acquired early and easily.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2022.1065525","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,17]],"date-time":"2023-01-17T06:22:21Z","timestamp":1673936541000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Spelling deficits in children with intellectual disabilities: Evidence from a regular orthography"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Francesco Domenico","family":"Di Blasi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Francesca","family":"Vizzi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Maria Agatina","family":"Stimoli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Serafino","family":"Buono","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Marika","family":"Iaia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Pierluigi","family":"Zoccolotti","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Paola","family":"Angelelli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","volume-title":"Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edn","year":"2013"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"18","DOI":"10.1097\/00146965-200403000-00003","article-title":"Characteristics of writing disorders in Italian dyslexic children","volume":"17","author":"Angelelli","year":"2004","journal-title":"Cogn. 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