PURPOSE: to describe the orthographic findings in several types of learning problems, check if the types of produced mistakes are those found in the learning that is considered normal and analyze if orthographic or phonological nature problems prevail in each disorder. METHODS: the writing of 64 subjects was evaluated by the Laboratory of Learning Disabilities of the Neurology Department of UNICAMP and diagnosed as showing some type of learning problem. Deficit of Attention / Hyperactivity disorder (28); School Difficulties (13); Learning Disabilities (7); Dyslexia (3); Associated Disorders (5) and Inconclusive Diagnosis (9). The ages varied between 8;2 and 13;4 years, with a 10;6 year-old average. Only subjects in alphabetical writing level without any type of intellectual deficit were included. The found mistakes were classified in eleven categories and quantified for ends of statistical analysis. RESULTS: the spelling mistakes found in each problem type correspond to those observed in children without learning complaint. The spelling mistakes through Multiple Representations, Omission of letters and Orality, are respectively, the three most frequent types in the cases Deficit of Attention and Hyperactivity disorder, School Difficulties, Associated Disorders and Unknown Diagnosis. In the Disturbance of Learning the sequence is of Multiple Representations, Omission, Other Mistakes and Voiced/Unvoiced mistakes. In the dyslexia we note the sequence of Multiple Representations, Orality, Omission and Other Mistakes. There is a trend, in each problem type, to the prevalence of orthographic nature mistakes, although with no statistically significant difference in relation to the phonological nature mistakes. CONCLUSION: the orthographic nature mistakes are the most frequent, although, there is no significant difference, in each group, in relation to the phonological nature mistakes. With contrary trend, the visual-spatial mistakes have low occurrence in general, which shows that the difficulty concerning all groups has fundamentally a linguistic origin and not a perceptual.
Learning Disorders; Handwriting; Education
