Acta Psychologica 191 (2018) 201–209

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Acta Psychologica
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/actpsy

Word writing in Spanish-speaking children: Central and peripheral processes T

Paz Suárez-Coalla , Nagore González-Martín, Fernando Cuetos
⁎

Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Pza Feijoo s/n, 33003 Oviedo, Asturias, Spain

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The impact of central on peripheral writing processes has been studied mainly in adults and children whose first
Orthographic consistency language is a deep orthographic system. The results suggest that the influence varies according to age, but it also
Written latency could depend on the orthographic system. The objective of the present work was to address the possible impact
First letter duration of the central (orthographic retrieval) on peripheral (motor execution) processes during writing acquisition in a
Cascade processes
transparent orthography. To achieve the objective, seventy-five Spanish children performed a copying and a
spelling-to-dictation task, where orthographic consistency, lexical frequency and word length were manipulated.
The results suggest that the central processes influence the peripheral ones from an early age (when writing has
not yet been automated). Specifically, orthographic consistency cascaded into movement production, but it was
modulated by task and grade, as this effect was only evident for 2nd grade children when they were asked to
perform a spelling-to-dictation task.

1. Introduction durations—including different segments, as word, letter or stroke

According to the hierarchical model of Van Galen (1991), linguistic
(or central), and motor (or peripheral) processes are involved in word
writing. The central processes are responsible for the recall and acti-
vation of the orthographic representations, while the peripheral ones
are implicated in the motor execution, including allograph selection,
size control and muscular adjustment modules. In addition, from neu-
ropsychological models of writing, central and peripheral processes are
considered, and at least two routes integrate the central orthographic
processes. These two almost undisputed routes are the lexical and the
sublexical routes. From the lexical route the whole-word spelling is
retrieved, so it is used to write familiar words. In contrast, the sub-
lexical route relies on the phonology-to-orthography correspondences
of the orthographic system, and offers a phonologically plausible spel-
ling for pseudowords and unfamiliar words (Bonin, Peereman, & Fayol,
2001; Cuetos, 1991; Ellis, 1988; Tainturier & Rapp, 2001) see Fig. 1.
Initially, it was hypothesised that the central (spelling) and per-
ipheral (handwriting) processes were independent, so the onset of the
motor output was an indicator that the central processes has been
completed, regardless of the route followed to access the orthographic
representation (Ellis, 1988; Margolin, 1984). From this hypothesis, two
lines of study emerged: research into the central orthographic processes
through measures such as writing latencies (Bonin, Fayol, & Peereman,
1998; Bonin & Meot, 2002), and research about peripheral ortho-
graphic processes through kinematic measures such as writing
(Meulenbroek & Van Galen, 1988; Portier, Van Galen, & Meulenbroek,
1990). Written latency (WL) is considered to be the time between
presentation of the stimulus (auditory in spelling-to-dictation or visual
in copying) and first contact of the pen with the paper. Writing duration
(WD) means the time elapsed from the first contact of the pen with the
paper to its separation when the writing of the word is finished, or even
when a letter or stroke is considered finished.
Given that WL is supposed an indicator of central orthographic
processes, it would be expected that some lexical and sublexical vari-
ables, such as lexical frequency, length, orthographic consistency or
regularity, would influence only and specifically this measure (Bonin,
Malardier, Méot, & Fayol, 2006; Damian & Stadthagen-Gonzalez,
2009). However, recent studies, where WD was also measured, showed
that some lexical or sublexical variables influence not only WL, but WD,
traditionally considered a marker of the peripheral processes, as well
(Álvarez, Cottrell, & Afonso, 2009; Delattre, Bonin, & Barry, 2006;
Lambert, Alamargot, Larocque, & Caporossi, 2011). Moreover, the
lexical and sublexical effects on peripheral processes have been ob-
served in different measures, such as the interval between the letters or
the duration of the letters and strokes (Afonso, Álvarez, & Kandel, 2015;
Afonso, Suárez-Coalla, & Cuetos, 2015; Álvarez et al., 2009; Roux,
McKeeff, Grosjacques, Afonso, & Kandel, 2013). This evidence indicates
that the central processing of some words continues during grapho-
motor execution, as functional models assume. This implies that the
processes of written production operate in a cascaded fashion, i.e., the

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: suarezpaz@uniovi.es (P. Suárez-Coalla).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.10.001
Received 27 February 2018; Received in revised form 2 October 2018; Accepted 2 October 2018
0001-6918/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
P. Suárez-Coalla et al.
Fig. 1. Theoretical framework for understanding the processes involved in spelling-to-dictation and copying tasks, where different pathways are presented con-
sidering the input type (visual or auditory).
higher processes are still active during lower level processing, mod-
ulating the lower level processes (Bonin, Roux, Barry, & Canell, 2012).
However, results have been unclear about linguistic variables affecting
motor execution and the possible differences resulting from the task,
age, handwriting development or orthographic system.
One of the variables that most clearly seems to impact both the
central and the peripheral processes is orthographic consistency or
regularity. Consistent words are those that have a direct correspon-
dence between phonemes and graphemes, while inconsistent words are
those that contain some phonemes that can be written by different
graphemes. As reported several times, orthographic inconsistency in-
creases the WL (Bonin & Meot, 2002; Bonin, Méot, Lagarrigue, & Roux,
2015; Delattre et al., 2006) and the WD (Afonso, Álvarez, & Kandel,
2015; Afonso, Suárez-Coalla, & Cuetos, 2015; Bloemsaat, Van Galen, &
Meulenbroek, 2003; Delattre et al., 2006; Lambert et al., 2011; Roux
et al., 2013). But the consistency effect seems to be modulated by
lexical frequency in spelling-to-dictation (Delattre et al., 2006) and
copying tasks (Lambert et al., 2011). Moreover, the study of Roux et al.
(2013) reported that, in adults, the locus of the interaction between
central and peripheral processing varies depending on the character-
istics of the stimulus. Using a fine-grained methodology (the duration of
each letter in the word), they demonstrated that the cascade affected
the duration of the initial letter when the irregularity was placed in this
position, but when it was placed at the end of the word, the cascade
effect continued until the locus of the irregularity. This result supports
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Acta Psychologica 191 (2018) 201–209
the idea that central processes produce different types of cascades,
marked by the characteristics of the stimuli.
Despite the evidence that spelling processes regulate graphomotor
execution, until now there have been few studies addressing how the
central and peripheral interaction is built up during writing acquisition.
Over the early years of learning to write, children face many challenges,
as they have to learn how to produce letters (automatize and store the
motor programs in long-term memory), acquire the orthographic code,
and develop orthographic representations of words. At the beginning,
letter production is slow and a lot of practice is necessary in order to
automatize graphomotor execution (Halsband & Lange, 2006), and re-
lease cognitive resources allowing them to carry out other processes
involved in writing (Abbott, Berninger, & Fayol, 2010; Alamargot,
Plane, Lambert, & Chesnet, 2010). Taking into consideration that ki-
nematic production is very variable during the graphomotor acquisition
period, several studies examine the moment both spelling and motor
processes start to interact in an adult-like way. The results of recent
research about this topic, using different parameters, suggested that
motor production starts to be affected by spelling processes around
8 years old (Afonso, Suárez-Coalla, González-Martín, & Cuetos, 2017;
González-Martín, Suárez-Coalla, Afonso, & Cuetos, 2017; Kandel,
Hérault, Grosjacques, Lambert, & Fayol, 2009; Kandel, Peereman,
Grosjeacques, & Fayol, 2011; Kandel & Perret, 2015a; Kandel & Valdois,
2005; Kandel & Valdois, 2006), since before this age, the graphomotor
execution of letters would be so demanding that children dedicate all
P. Suárez-Coalla et al.
their attention to the motor production, hampering cascaded proces-
sing. However, results are not consistent, probably because different
tasks, measures, linguistic variables, orthographic system and probably
teaching methods could be affecting the results. French, Kandel and
Valdois (2005), in a copying task, found that writing duration was
longer for irregular than regular words in 6 and 7 year old children, but
differences only appeared for recently acquired words. The duration of
critical letter strokes was higher for irregular than regular words, sug-
gesting that orthographic irregularity constitutes a supplementary
processing load as compared to the processing of regular words. In
another study, Kandel and Perret (2015a) tested French-speaking chil-
dren (aged eight to ten years old), in order to demonstrate the spelling-
motor interaction. Children were asked to copy words with different
lexical frequency and orthographic regularity. Findings supported the
claim that orthographic consistency and lexical frequency impact motor
execution, but the interaction between spelling and motor processes
seemed to be modulated by age or writing skills. Specifically, latencies
of 8–9 year old children were affected by orthographic regularity, but
the results were different for 10 year old children, as they showed
equivalent latencies for regular and irregular words. This evidence
implies that 10 year old children do not start to solve orthographic
conflicts before motor execution. However, orthographic irregularity
impacted movement durations at all ages, being largest for the youngest
children. Moreover, as they segment the words into letters, the locus of
the impact varied with age, as for 8 year olds, the regularity effect
impacted the end of the words, but for 9 and 10 year olds the regularity
effect appeared at the beginning and at the end of the words. The au-
thors suggested the 9–10 year old children presented a pattern more
similar to those of adults (Delattre et al., 2006; Roux et al., 2013). Older
children may start the motor execution before solving the orthographic
conflict, while younger children try to solve the conflict before they
start to write, in order to avoid a cognitive load. As for word frequency,
this variable impacted latencies and motor execution, but the impact
was similar at all ages.
In Spanish, a shallow orthographic system, lexical frequency was
reported to affect both WL and WD for children in 2nd grade, but the
effect on WD was only marginally significant among 4th graders and
disappeared for 6th graders (Afonso et al., 2017); however, González-
Martín et al. (2017) found that lexical frequency does not affect the
peripheral processes of 2nd, 4th or 6th graders. On the other hand,
Søvik, Arntzen, Samuelstuen, and Heggberget (1994) found that, in
9 year old Dutch-speaking children, lexical frequency influence was
modulated by stimulus length, affecting only the long words.
Otherwise, considering the task to perform, copying and spelling-to-
dictation, different processes are involved (Bonin et al., 2015). In the
spelling-to-dictation task, the stimulus is received in an auditory form,
whereas for the copying task it is presented in a visual form, so reading
is completely necessary (see Fig. 1). In spite of the different processes
required by the different tasks, there are not many studies comparing
them. Some studies, addressing this kind of comparison in Spanish,
reported that children start the response faster for spelling to dictation
than for copying, as reading time is included in latencies for the copying
task. In contrast, participants (no matter what age they are or what
writing skills they have) wrote faster in copying than in spelling-to-
dictation (Afonso et al., 2017; Afonso, Suárez-Coalla, & Cuetos, 2015;
Afonso, Suárez-Coalla, & Cuetos, in press; see Afonso, Suárez-Coalla,
González-Martín, & Cuetos, 2018). Therefore, the comparison of spel-
ling-motor processes interaction in copying and spelling-to-dictation
tasks is of great interest, especially from a development point of view.
To sum up, the data support the idea that central activation spreads
into writing duration, but not all the linguistic variables have the same
impact on the children's handwriting, as orthographic regularity seems
to have stronger and more consistent impact than word frequency. In
addition, the central-peripheral interaction seems to be modulated by
age, task, and probably orthographic system.
The goal of this study was to more closely examine the possible
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Acta Psychologica 191 (2018) 201–209
interaction between the central (lexical and sublexical) and peripheral
processes during writing acquisition (seven to nine years old) in a
shallow orthographic system. To achieve this goal, lexical frequency,
orthographic consistency and word length in both copying and spelling-
to-dictation were manipulated. The literature supports the view that it
is around 8 years old when handwriting automation is supposed to
occur, and then the moment when the central-peripheral processes start
to interact, but the majority of the studies examined deep orthographies
(English and French). Even though there are some inconsistencies in the
Spanish orthographic system, previous studies comparing writing ac-
quisition in deep and shallow orthographic systems that examined
written accuracy (Spanish vs. French: Carrillo, Alegría, & Marín, 2013;
Italian vs. English: Marinelli, Romani, Burani, & Zoccolotti, 2015) have
suggested that transparency favours orthographic code learning. Spe-
cifically, children who use a deep orthographic system learn their or-
thographic code around nine to eleven years old (Bidet-Ildei &
Orliaguet, 2008; Kandel & Perret, 2015b; Pontart et al., 2013), while
children using a more transparent orthographic system appear to be
competent in their orthographic code around eight years old, two years
before English-speaking children (Alegría & Carrillo, 2014; Défior &
Serrano, 2005; Jiménez et al., 2008). In this sense, the orthographic
system could determine the age at which interaction between central
and peripheral processes starts to happen. In this study, latencies (WL)
were measured as an indicator of central processes, and duration of the
first letter (L1D) as indicator of the peripheral ones, and the effect of the
cascaded activation. The first letter of the word was considered because
it is the place where the inconsistency was located.
We hypothesised that orthographic consistency will affect WL and
L1D, in the sense that the influence of this variable does not end during
WL, but continues during the word writing, evidence of cascaded pro-
cessing. On the other hand, the consistency effect will be modulated by
age (grade) with greater effects in younger children. In addition, the
orthographic consistency effect will be determined by the task as well,
with differences between consistent and inconsistent words only in
spelling-to-dictation. Copying necessarily implies a previous reading
process, so those engaged in a copying task will receive direct in-
formation about graphemes to write, and then they will not face an
orthographic conflict. Moreover, the influence of orthographic con-
sistency on WL and L1D could depend on lexical frequency, with
greater effect of the inconsistency in low frequency (LF) words than in
high frequency (HF) ones. This is predicted because we assume that HF
words will have a stronger orthographic representation than LF ones,
which will imply a lower orthographic conflict to solve.
2. Method
2.1. Participants
Seventy-five Spanish children (36 males and 39 females) between
seven and nine years of age participated in this study. Twenty five
children attended Grade 2 (Mage = 7 years and 7 months; SD
= 0.24 months), 25 children attended Grade 3 (Mage = 8 years and
6 months; SD = 0.28 months) and 25 children attended Grade 4
(Mage = 9 years and 7 months; SD = 0.30 months); in each grade there
were 12 males and 13 females. Participants were recruited from a
public school in the Oviedo urban area, Spain. In this school, reading
and writing instruction begins formally in the preschool level at around
age 5, but before this age, the children learn how to read and write
some letters, syllables, and words. They use a mixed method, including
both phonological and syllabic instruction, and they learn how to write
in cursive writing style; however, it is not mandatory to use a cursive
writing style during the whole of primary school.
All of them shared a middle-class socio-economic background, they
were all right-handed, and all were native Spanish-speakers. They had
normal or corrected-to-normal vision, they did not present known
motor disorders, perceptual disorders or learning difficulties, and they
P. Suárez-Coalla et al. Acta Psychologica 191 (2018) 201–209

had an adequate reading level according to PROLEC-R (Cuetos,
Rodríguez, Ruano, & Arribas, 2007). All the participants used cursive
writing style, except nine children in grade 4 and three in grade 3, who
used print letters. They were tested in February.
The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Department
of Psychology, University of Oviedo, and we obtained written informed
consent from the parents of all participants as well as obtaining the
consent of the children themselves.
2.2. Materials
Forty-eight Spanish words were selected from the database ONESC
(Martín & Pérez, 2008), see Appendix A. Among them, phoneme-to-
grapheme consistency (consistent vs inconsistent), word frequency
(high vs low), and length (short vs long) were manipulated. In con-
sistent words, phonemes had an unambiguous spelling (e.g., MARIP-
OSA [maɾiposa], butterfly), while the first grapheme of the inconsistent
words had at least one alternative spelling (e.g., VOLUMEN [bolumẽn],
loudness); for example, in Spanish the phoneme [β] accepts two pos-
sible graphemes: B and V, so it is necessary to know the correct or-
thographic form to write the word correctly. According to the values
provided by the cited database, HF words had a mean frequency of
112.67 (SD = 53.85), while the mean frequency for LF words was 5.35
(SD = 2.65); the difference between HF and LF words was significant
(p < .001). In the same way, there were significant differences be-
tween short and long words (p < .001). The number of letters for the
short words was 4.5 (SD = 0.51) and for the long ones 7.3 (SD = 0.48).
Across conditions, the stroke numbers of the first letter were controlled,
in addition to uniqueness point and orthographic neighbors according
to the database ESPAL (Duchon, Perea, Sebastián-Gallés, Martí, &
Carreiras, 2013). See Table 1 for the statistical comparison of the sti-
muli characteristics.
For each word, a visual stimulus for the copying task and an audi-
tory stimulus for the spelling-to-dictation task were created. The visual
stimuli consisted of an image with the word in black lower-case Calibri
60-point font on a white background, while the auditory stimuli were
recorded by a female speaker with a Plantronics microphone and edited
with Audacity, in order to control voice onset. Two additional words
were selected to include as practice.
2.3. Apparatus
Stimulus presentation and digital recording of the responses were
controlled by Ductus (Guinet & Kandel, 2010). The experiment was run
on an HP Mini laptop. A WACOM Intuos 5 graphic tablet connected to
the computer and an Intuos Inking Pen were used to register the par-
ticipants' responses.
was performed a week later. To present the stimuli, eight lists for the
spelling-to-dictation task and another eight for the copying task were
created, where the first two stimuli were provided as a trial, to famil-
iarise the participants with the task. Participants were asked to write
the stimuli, as quickly as they could after they recognized them, in
lower case letters, and avoiding any mistakes.
In spelling-to-dictation, each trial started with an auditory signal
and a simultaneous 500-ms fixation point on the screen; the auditory
stimulus then appeared after 1500 milliseconds. The participants began
to write with the electronic Inking pen, on the top half of the lined
paper that was stuck on the graphic tablet. When they finished the
word, they were instructed to place the pen over the next line of the
sheet, without any contact with it. The experimenter then clicked the
left button of the mouse to present a new stimulus. In the copying task,
the process was the same as in the previous task, but now the stimulus
presentation was an image with the word to write, which remained on
the screen until the next trial. The whole experiment lasted around
40 min, 20 min for the copying task and 20 min for the spelling-to-
dictation task.
3. Results
A total of 7200 responses were obtained (3600 from the spelling-to-
dictation and 3600 from the copying task). A total of 2.3% (83) of re-
sponses in the copying task and 16.2% (583) in the spelling-to-dictation
task were discarded because of spelling mistakes. From the correct re-
sponses, written latencies (WL) and first letter duration (L1D) were
collected. In addition, WL and L1D more than two standard deviations
above or below the mean (for each participant in every task) were re-
moved.
Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) on WL and L1D were conducted
with mixed effects analyses (Baayen, 2008) fit by REML using the R
software (RStudio, RStudio Team, 2012), with participants and items as
random-effect variables, and grade, task, word frequency, length and
consistency as fixed-effect variables. Stepwise model comparisons were
conducted from the most complex to the simplest model, and the one
with the most complex adjustment and the smallest Akaike information
criterion (AIC; Akaike, 1974) and significant χ2 test for the log-like-
lihood was retained. For the random factor structure, we followed a
forward best-path procedure (Barr, Levy, Scheepers, & Tily, 2013). F
values from the ANOVAs of type III with Satterthwaite approximation
for degrees of freedom are reported for fixed effects. When the effects of
grade or interactions were significant, t-tests were performed and the p-
values were adjusted via the Holm-Bonferroni method. A p-value ≤ .05
was considered statistically significant.
3.1. Written latencies

Written latencies were considered to be the time between word pre-

2.4. Procedure
sentation and the time the participant started to write, i.e., the first contact
of the pen with the digitizer (pen pressure > 0). From the data, we found
The tasks were performed individually in a quiet room at school.
statistical several significant effects and interactions, see Table 2, where
The spelling-to-dictation task was run before the copying task, which
estimates and standard errors were included. The final model included the
fixed-effect variables (grade, task, consistency, word frequency and length)
Table 1
Linguistic variables for which the words were controlled for. and random–effect variables (subject and item). The random factor struc-
ture consisted of random intercepts over subjects and items plus random
Incon Consis p HF LF p Short Long p slope of consistency and frequency over subjects, in addition to random
WF 60.02 59.71 n.s. 112.66 5.35 < .001 61.79 56.22 n.s. slope of task over items – models with a more elaborate random factor
NL 5.92 5.90 n.s 5.91 5.91 n.s 4.50 7.33 < .001 structure failed to converge. Accordingly, the R code for the final model is:
UPoint 6.90 6.83 n.s. 6.83 6.91 n.s 5.50 8.25 n.s. WL ∼ Grade ∗ Task ∗ Consistency ∗ Frequency ∗ Length + (1+ Con-
OrN. 10 7 n.s 8.79 8.20 n.s. 14.96 2.04 n.s sistency ∗ Frequency|subject) + (1+ Task|item), which thus includes all the
L1st 4.00 4.1 n.s. 3.83 3.83 n.s 3.83 3.83 n.s
fixed factors and their interactions. Therefore the WL depends on the in-
WF: word frequency, NL: number of letters, OrN: orthographic neighbors, teraction of all fixed factors.
UPoint: uniqueness point, L1st: strokes number first letter, Incon: orthographic Latencies decreased with grade, and pairwise comparisons showed
inconsistent words, Consis: orthographic consistent words, HF: high frequency that 4th graders initiated the response significantly faster than 3rd
words, LF: low frequency word. graders [t(72) = 4.73, p < .001; Estimate = 318.06, SE = 66.75] and

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P. Suárez-Coalla et al. Acta Psychologica 191 (2018) 201–209

Table 2
Main effects and interactions for written latencies.
Estimate Std error F Pr(> F)

Intercept 1168.52 71.90

Grade 32.1961 < .001***
2nd grade 557.08 80.32
3rd grade 376.30 80.16
Task 112.3794 < .001***
Dictation 99.29 65.75
Consistency 20.5884 < .001***
Consistent −30.84 74.42
Word frequency 15.4102 < .001***
LF 33.82 74.63
Length 54.2238 < .001***
Long 90.86 73.61
Grade:task 212.4238 < .001***
2nd grade:dictation −200.86 65.10
3rd grade:dictation −178.56 63.41
Task:consistency 5.8830 < .05*
Dictation:consistent −84.92 91.65
Grade:word frequency 8.7920 < .001***
2nd grade:LF 193.68 62.50
3rd grade:LF 71.34 62.01 Fig. 2. Orthographic consistency by task interaction for written latency.
Task:word frequency 6.6558 < .05*
Dictation:LF 27.44 95.37
differences between consistent and inconsistent words in the
Grade:length 21.0431 < .001***
2nd grade:long 208.97 60.30 spelling-to-dictation task [t(45) = 5.695, p < .001; Estimate = 152.24,
3rd grade:long 82.14 59–92 SE = 26.73], see Fig. 2.
Task:length 34.6220 < .001***
Dictation:long −17.16 92.11
Grade:task:word frequency 9.5035 < .001***
3.2. First letter duration
2nd grade:dictation:LF −175.18 95.23
3rd grade:dictation:LF −57.82 93.73
Grade:task:length 30.6677 < .001*** Letter duration referred to the time the child spent writing the
2nd grade:dictation:long −239.98 91.22 letter. Geometric (cuspids and curvature maxima in the trajectory) and
3rd grade:dictation:long −105.53 88.43 kinematic (tangential velocity minima) criteria were used to segment
Task:word frequency:length 5.1436 < .05*
Dictation:LF:long −56.42 133.73
the first letter, as was done by Kandel and Perret (2015a). We only
considered the first letter, where the inconsistency was placed, in order
***0.001. to catch the possible consistency effect. We compared the duration of
**0.01. different letters, but as mentioned above, the number of strokes was
*0.05. controlled among conditions and following the segmentation of cursive
letters by Meulenbroek and van Galen (1990). Considering L1D, we
found statistical significant effects of grade, task, and consistency, in
2nd graders [t(72) = 7.99, p < .001; Estimate = 537.05, SE = 67.30], addition to grade by task, grade by consistency, and task by consistency
and 3rd grade children were faster than 2nd grade ones [t(72) = 3.254, interactions; Table 3 shows the estimates and standard errors. The
p < .01; Estimate = 219.18, SE = 67.26]. Longer latencies were found random factor structure included random intercepts over subjects and
in long than in short words, in the copying than in the spelling-to- items plus random slope of consistency and word frequency over sub-
dictation task, in inconsistent than in consistent words, and in LF than jects, in addition to random slope of task over items – models with a
in HF words. The length effect was modulated by grade, task and word more complex random factor structure failed to converge. The R code
frequency, as the difference between latencies of short and long words
depended on grades [2nd grade: t(72) = 9.418, p < .001; Table 3
Estimate = 241.55, SE = 25. 64; 3rd grade: t(70) = 5.826, p < .001; Main effects and interactions for first letter duration.
Estimate = 147.89, SE = 25.38; 4th grade: t(71) = 3.7392, p < .01;
Estimate Std error F Pr(> F)
Estimate = 97.03, SE = 25.58]; moreover, the length effect only
appeared in the copying task [t(39) = 8.491, p < .001; Intercept 418.10 33.06
Estimate = 274.78, SE = 32.36], and the effect was bigger in LF words Grade 50.1753 < .001***
than in HF words [difference between short and long HF words: t 2nd grade 285.52 28.90
3rd grade 126.52 28.88
(39) = 4.635, p < .01; Estimate = 211.78, SE = 45.69; difference be-
Task 21.0832 < .001***
tween short and long LF words: t(45) = 7.370, p < .001; Dictation 27.85 12.50
Estimate = 333.79, SE = 45.83]. Pairwise comparisons from the grade Consistency 12.3103 < .01**
by task interaction revealed that children were slower in the copying Consistent 36.78 39.39
than in the spelling-to-dictation task, but only in 2nd grade [t Grade:task 28.5429 < .001***
2nd grade:dictation 51.41 17.32
(87) = 18.149, p < .001; Estimate = 421.73, SE = 23.24] and 3rd 3rd grade:dictation −29.82 16.78
grade [t(83) = 10.012, p < .001; Estimate = 229.47, SE = 22.95], and Grade:consistency 16.6242 < .001***
the difference was modulated by word frequency, i.e., the difference 2nd grade:consistent −85.20 20.04
was longer in LF words [difference between HF and LF words in copy 3rd grade:consistent 31.20 20.24
Task:consistency 25.4089 < .001***
task for 2nd grade: t(69) = 6.475, p < .001; Estimate = 242.18,
Dictation:consistent −24.305 17.35
SE = 37.40; difference between HF and LF words in copy task for 3rd
grade was close to significance: t(68) = 3.463, p = .06; ***0.001.
Estimate = 129.03, SE = 37.26]. Regarding orthographic consistency, **0.01.
the effect was modulated by the task, as we only found significant *0.05.

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P. Suárez-Coalla et al. Acta Psychologica 191 (2018) 201–209

for the final model is: L1D ∼ Grade ∗ Task ∗ Consistency ∗ Frequency
+ (1 + Consistency ∗ Frequency|subject) + (1 + Task|item), where
some fixed factors (grade, task, consistency and word frequency) and
their interactions were included in the model. In this sense, the L1D
depends on the interaction of that fixed factors.
Movement duration of L1D decreased with age. The 2nd grade
children took longer to write L1D than the 3rd grade children [t
(72) = 6.252, p < .001; Estimate = 159.29, SE = 25.48], and the 3rd
grade took longer than the 4th grade children [t(72) = 3.654, p < .01;
Estimate = 93.07, SE = 25.47]. The main effects indicated that L1D was
longer in the spelling-to-dictation than in the copying task
(Estimate = 18.37, SE = 4.00), and longer in the inconsistent than in
the consistent words (Estimate = 98.05, SE = 27.494). However, task
was modulated by grade, as we found differences between grades in
both copying and spelling-to-dictation tasks, except between 3rd and
4th grades in spelling-to-dictation, where durations were equivalent
[copying task: 4th vs 3rd t(75) = 4.371, p < .001; Estimate = 112.62,
SE = 25.76; 4th vs 2nd t(75) = 9.317, p < .001; Estimate = 240.08,
SE = 25.76; 3rd vs 2nd t(75) = 4.946, p < .001; Estimate = 127.45,
SE = 25. 76; spelling-to-dictation task: 4th vs 2nd t(77) = 10.221,
Fig. 4. Orthographic consistency by task interaction for first letter duration.
p < .001; Estimate = 264.66, SE = 25.89; 3rd vs 2nd t(77) = 7.380,
p < .001; Estimate = 191. 14, SE = 25.90]. The consistency effect was
modulated by grade and task, since differences between consistent and experience. The decline of the WL can be a consequence of a rapid recall
inconsistent words only appeared for 2nd grade [t(55) = 4.954, of the lexical knowledge, indicating how fast the central processing of a
p < .001; Estimate = 144.41, SE = 29.18], and differences were longer word with robust orthographic representation was. The development of
in spelling-to-dictation, than in copying [spelling-to-dictation: t the lexical knowledge, thanks to the experience, has been amply de-
(46) = 4.000, p < .001; Estimate = 118.23, SE = 29.56; copying: t monstrated in different studies investigating writing acquisition by
(46) = 2.902, p < .05; Estimate = 77.90, SE = 26.83], see Figs. 3 and precision measures (Carrillo et al., 2013; Marinelli et al., 2015). Fur-
4. thermore, the L1D decrease along grades is supposed to be the result of
the improvement of the graphomotor execution.
Previous studies with Spanish children found no significant differences
4. Discussion
in WD between 4th and 6th grades of primary school, concluding that
motor execution had already been automated in 4th grade (Afonso et al.,
The goal of this study was to address the relationship between the
2017; González-Martín et al., 2017). In those studies, 3rd grade children
central (lexical and sublexical) and peripheral processes of handwriting,
were not included, so it was not clear whether handwriting automation was
during writing acquisition in a shallow orthographic system. In short,
achieved before 4th grade. In the present study, we found that 4th grade
we tried to determine how the motor and spelling processes interaction
children have significantly lower L1D than 3rd grade children, suggesting
builds up when the graphomotor execution and the orthographic code
that motor execution is still improving. Our results are consistent with
start to become automatic (7 to 9 years old: 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades).
studies suggesting that graphomotor execution is automated around nine
Moreover, we wanted to approach the differences determined by the
years old (Afonso et al., 2017; González-Martín et al., 2017; Halsband &
task: copy vs. spelling-to-dictation. To achieve this goal, the impact of
Lange, 2006; Kandel & Perret, 2015a). In addition, significant differences
lexical frequency, orthographic consistency and word length in WL and
between long and short words in WL for all grades suggest a greater load on
L1D were considered.
the graphemic buffer with the long words. Conversely, when the stored
Our data indicated that the older children are the faster central and
string of graphemes is smaller, the effort made to retain the words will also
peripheral processing was performed, of course due to the writing
be less and therefore the latencies will decrease. Similar results have also
been already observed in Spanish and Dutch (González-Martín et al., 2017;
Søvik et al., 1994). Moreover, the length effect in WL was modulated by
grade, task, and lexical frequency, indicating that this effect is linked to
reading speed (the effect only appeared in copying). As reported before
(Afonso et al., 2017; Afonso et al., in press), young children with slow
reading speed would need an important amount of time to read words
before writing them, especially when dealing with LF words.
Otherwise, the most interesting contribution of this work is the re-
sult concerning orthographic consistency. In the first place, WLs were
longer for the inconsistent than for the consistent words in spelling-to-
dictation, unlike what happens in copying. This finding suggest than
Spanish children (7–9 years old) need to solve the orthographic conflict
when they face a spelling-to-dictation task, which is not necessary in a
copying task, where they receive direct information about the gra-
pheme to write. We also have to add that in Spanish, inconsistent words
produce a stronger conflict in spelling than in reading, so the absence of
the consistency effect in WL in the copying task is to be expected.
Similar outcomes were found in other studies with adults, where the
effect of orthographic consistency on WL was found in the spelling-to-
dictation task (Bonin et al., 2015; Delattre et al., 2006), but not in the
Fig. 3. Orthographic consistency by grade interaction for first letter duration. copying task (Lambert et al., 2011; Roux et al., 2013).

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P. Suárez-Coalla et al. Acta Psychologica 191 (2018) 201–209

In addition, the consistency effect was also present in L1D, in-
dicating that orthographic consistency cascaded into movement pro-
duction, regulating graphomotor execution (peripheral processes of
writing). Moreover, it was also modulated by task and grade, as this
effect only was evident for 2nd grade children (around 7–8 years old) in
L1D when they were asked to perform a spelling-to-dictation task.
During spelling-to-dictation, a linguistic conflict was generated because
of the inconsistency, and it did not seem to be solved during WL for 2nd
grade children, so the consistency effect spreads to the L1. In contrast,
older children (3rd and 4th grade) seem to solve the orthographic
conflict during the WL, as the consistent effect did not appear in L1D.
The effects of regularity in WL and WD were found in French children
from eight to ten years old by Kandel and Perret (2015a); however,
some results were modulated by age. Specifically, they found that
10 year old children showed similar WL for regular and irregular words,
suggesting that at this age children do not solve orthographic conflict
before motor execution. In contrast, the regularity effect appeared in
WD at all ages, while the locus of the impact varied with age. Similarly
to us, Kandel and Perret (2015a) found an impact of irregularity in
movement duration, but it should be noted that they used a copying
task, whereas we did not find an effect of orthographic consistency in
L1D. Similarly, Kandel and Valdois (2005) found that orthographic
regularity affected peripheral processes in 1st and 2nd grade children
and found that only the words acquired more recently, and with irre-
gularity in the middle of the word, entailed longer WD. Thus, while
research about the moment when the interaction between central and
peripheral processes occurs is scarce, it seems that orthographic in-
consistency causes cascaded processing from very early ages.
To conclude, our data revealed that orthographic consistency im-
pacted WL and cascaded into L1D, but it seems to be modulated by task
and age (grade), as differences between consistent and inconsistent
words only appeared in spelling-to-dictation around 7–8 years old.
These results indicate that the cognitive conflict caused by the incon-
sistency in a word does not end during WL for spelling-to-dictation, but
continues during the word writing. However, this effect did not seem to
be modulated by word frequency, at least when considering only the
first letter. This observation implies that the interaction between central
and peripheral processes depends on stimulus characteristics, task, and
writing skills.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by grant PSI2015-64174P from the Ministry
of Economy and Competitiveness, Spanish Government.

Appendix A. Experimental stimuli used in the copying and spelling-to-dictation tasks

Words WF NL NSyl OrN UPoint

Consistent
High-frequency
Short
Piano 98.67 5 2 2 6
Mapa 178.08 4 2 24 5
Nido 104.09 4 2 15 5
Lana 108.08 5 2 34 5
Falda 60.71 4 2 12 6
Solar 104.74 5 2 19 6
Long
Popular 91.00 7 3 1 8
Mariposa 85.77 8 4 0 9
Linterna 184.90 8 3 1 9
Naranja 105.84 7 3 1 8
Formada 123.64 7 3 7 8
Socorro 82.21 7 3 3 8
Low-frequency
Short
Poro 3.85 4 2 27 5
Mero 8.58 4 2 28 5
Nardo 3.65 5 2 11 6
Lapa 7.52 4 2 25 5
Fideo 3.05 5 3 2 6
Sonda 5.80 5 2 13 6
Long
Paralela 6.70 8 3 2 9
Muscular 4.48 8 3 0 9
Nadador 2.25 7 3 1 8
Litoral 9.25 7 3 1 8
Fundido 4.16 7 3 6 8
Salario 4.89 7 3 5 8
Inconsistent
High-frequency
Short
Boda 62.02 4 2 24 5
Bola 140.00 4 2 30 5
Verso 74.94 5 2 8 6
Verja 53.73 5 2 7 6

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Genio 157.87 5 2 4 6
Jefe 276.92 4 2 6 5
Long
Barriga 116.16 7 3 5 8
Bandera 57.37 7 3 3 8
Volumen 76.21 7 3 0 6
Valiente 149.96 8 3 2 9
Generoso 39.45 8 4 1 9
Gigante 171.67 7 3 2 8
Low-frequency
Short
Bolo 8.79 4 2 25 5
Borla 3.58 5 2 8 6
Vado 3.10 4 2 16 5
Viudo 4.81 5 2 1 6
Gema 8.72 4 2 13 5
Jerga 1.77 5 2 5 6
Long
Baldosa 8.09 7 3 1 8
Bancada 1.19 7 3 3 8
Verdugo 6.28 7 3 1 8
Viscosa 6.96 7 3 3 8
Gelatina 9.64 8 4 0 9
Jefatura 1.35 8 4 0 9
WF: word frequency, NL: number of letters, NSyl: number of syllables, OrN: orthographic neighbors, UPoint: uniqueness poi.

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