2020 Volume 61 Issue 2 Pages 171-176
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of attributes of single kanji characters, such as number of strokes, imageability, number of neighbors, and reading and writing frequency, on the spelling performance of children and adolescents with developmental dyslexia. As we were unable to find appropriate values for writing frequency for children in Japan, in experiment 1 we investigated how often children write each kanji character using a questionnaire given to elementary school teachers.
Results of a binomial logistic regression analysis indicated that for the kanji characters learned by 2nd grade children, spelling performance is significantly better when the kanji are characterized by fewer strokes, higher writing and reading frequency, or higher imageability. In the same way, among kanji characters learned by 3rd grade children, those with fewer strokes, fewer neighbors, high imageability, or high reading frequency were also spelled significantly better.
