Writing errors of a Cantonese dysgraphic patient and their theoretical implications

Abstract

This paper reports a case study of a Cantonese-speaking dysgraphic patient. Among his written errors were phonologically plausible errors that were mostly homophonous or differed only in tone from their target. They occurred not only in writing-to-dictation but also in written naming. Since his lexico-semantic system is hypothesized to be largely preserved, as evidenced by normal performance on non-verbal semantic tests and word-picture matching, the presence of homophone and tonal errors strengthened previous claims about the existence of a lexically-mediated non-semantic pathway of writing Chinese and access from the phonological output lexicon to the orthographic output lexicon. In addition, his non-character responses, particularly those involving substitution of constituent(s), almost always maintained the configuration of their target. This observation implies that orthographic representations contain not only information on the identity of components but also structural information. The latter may, among other possibilities, take the form of a template indicating the internal organization of the character or specification for position of occurrence for each constituent within the character. © Taylor & Francis Ltd.