DEFINITION AND SYMTOMS

Dysorthography is known as a spelling disorder within so-called writing disorders. It can be defined as "the group of errors affecting writing but not layout or spelling." (García Vidal, 1989). It refers to the significant difficulty in transcribing the written code accurately, i.e. the great difficulties in the association between the written code, spelling and writing rules of words. These difficulties lie in the association between sound and spelling or in the integration of spelling rules, or both.

Depending on the process, there are different types of Dysorthography:

1. Natural Dysorthography: characterized by a deficit in the use of an indirect or phonological path (a cognitive process that allows reading or writing words based on their minimum components, phonemes or graphemes), so the writing words is based on the use of the direct or lexical route. It affects phonological development and phoneme-grapheme rules of conversion. An addition or omission of a letter or the change of a letter involving a change of phoneme to pronounce the written word is considered a natural spelling error.

2. Visual Dysorthography: characterized by a deficit in the use of the direct pathway (a cognitive process that allows general reading and writing thanks to the existence of visual images and their spelling ), so that writing must be based on the indirect route. It affects orthographic rules. An omission or addition of a letter 'h' or a change between 'b' and 'v' are considered arbitrary spelling errors.

3. Mixed Dysorthography: a problem resulting from a malfunction of the two routes of production of the written word, both direct and indirect. So both natural dysorthography and visual errors are made.