A Child with Moderate Hearing Impairment Showing Developmental Dysgraphia Caused by Visual Memory Deficits

Abstract

This article reported a fourth-grade child with moderate hearing impairment and ADHD, who showed writing deficits for Kanji words in spite of her normal general intellectual function and language development. In addition to performance on rapid reading aloud tasks, her performance on reading and writing of Kana and reading of Kanji in the Screening Test of Reading and Writing for Japanese Primary School Children (STRAW) was within normal range. In contrast, she showed scores below -1.5 SD in the Kanji word writing task of STRAW. The results indicated that she had a specific deficit in Kanji word writing. She produced scores below -1.5 SD in the delayed recall test of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test, which served as a visual memory test, whereas her performance on all tests evaluating abilities of phonological processing, visual perception or automatization was within normal range. We hypothesize that visual memory deficits caused her deficits in Kanji word writing, as previous studies have indicated normal-hearing children showing a deficit in Kanji word writing.