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Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The small body of research on writing and writing processes in the group of deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children has shown that this group struggles more with writing than their hearing peers. This article aims to explore in what ways the DHH group differs from their peers regarding the written product and the writing processes. Participants are all in the age span 10-12 years old and include: (a) 12 DHH children with knowledge of Swedish sign language (Svenskt teckenspråk, STS) as well as spoken Swedish, (b) 10 age-matched hearing children of deaf adults (CODA) who know STS, (c) 14 age-matched hearing peers with no STS knowledge. More specifically we investigate how text length and lexical properties relate to writing processes such as planning (measured through pauses) and revision, and how the background factors of age, gender, hearing and knowledge of STS predict the outcome in product and process. The data consists of picture-elicited narratives collected with keystroke logging. The overall results show that age is a strong predictor for writing fluency, longer texts and more sophisticated lexicon for all the children. This confirms theories on writing development which stress that when children have automatized basic low-level processes such as transcription and spelling, this will free up cognitive space for engaging in high-level processes, such as planning and revision-which in turn will result in more mature texts. What characterizes the DHH group is slower writing fluency, higher lexical density, due to omitted function words, and extensive revisions (both deletions and insertions) on word level and below. One explanation for the last finding is that limitations in the auditory input lead to more uncertainty regarding correct and appropriate lexical choices, as well as spelling. The article contributes with more specific knowledge on what is challenging during writing for DHH children with knowledge of STS and spoken Swedish in middle school, in the developmental stage when basic writing skills are established., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Gärdenfors and Johansson.)

Text simplification involves making texts easier to understand, usually for lay readers. Simplifying texts is a complex task, especially when conducted in a second language. The readability of the produced texts and the way in which authors manage the different phases of the text simplification process are influenced by their writing expertise and by their language proficiency. Training on audience awareness can be beneficial for writers, but most research so far has devoted attention to first-language writers who simplify their own texts. Therefore, this study investigated the impact of text simplification training on second-language writers (university students) who simplify already existing texts. Specifically, after identifying a first and a second phase in the text simplification process (namely, two distinct series of writing dynamics), we analyzed the impact of our training on pausing and revision behavior across phases, as well as levels of readability achieved by the students. Additionally, we examined correlations between pausing behavior and readability by using keystroke logging data and automated text analysis. We found that phases of text simplification differ along multiple dimensions, even though our training did not seem to influence pausing and revision dynamics. Our training led to texts with fewer and shorter words, and with syntactically simpler sentences. The correlation analysis showed that longer and more frequent pauses at specific text locations were linked with increased readability in the same or adjacent text locations. We conclude the paper by discussing theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical implications, alongside limitations and areas for future research., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Rossetti and Van Waes.)

Researchers often decide on the number of trials included in an experiment without adhering to an empirical method or framework. This might compromise generalizability and unnecessarily increase participant burden. In this article we want to put forward generalizability theory as a guide for task reduction. We will use a sentence production task to demonstrate how a generalizability and a decision study can help researchers to estimate the minimum number of trials and of items per trial that are necessary to generalize over trials. We obtained writing process data for 116 participants. Each of them completed a sentence production task that had 40 trials. Pause times between and within all words, target nouns and target verbs were logged with the keystroke logging tool ScriptLog. Results demonstrate that generalizability theory can serve as an empirical framework to ensure generalizable measurements on the one hand, and reduce participant burden to a minimum on the other. This finding is particularly valuable for studies with vulnerable target groups, such as participants suffering from aphasia, dyslexia or Alzheimer's disease., (© 2021. The Psychonomic Society, Inc.)

In this article, we explore if the observation of writing behavior can assist in the screening and follow-up of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild dementia due to Alzheimer's disease (AD). To this end, we examined the extent to which overall writing process measures and pausing behavior during writing differed between 15 cognitively impaired patients and 15 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Participants completed two typed picture description tasks that were registered with Inputlog, a keystroke logging program that captures keyboard activity during text production. The following variables were analyzed with mixed-effects models: time on task; number of characters, pauses and Pause-bursts per minute; proportion of pause time; duration of Pause-bursts; and pause time between words. For pause time between words, also the effect of pauses preceding specific word categories was analyzed. Results showed a main effect of group on all variables. In addition, for pause time between words a main effect of part-of-speech was found as well. Results indicate that writing process analysis can possibly serve as a supplementary tool for the screening and follow-up of AD., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Meulemans, Leijten, Van Waes, Engelborghs and De Maeyer.)

Background: Intervention studies aimed to improve the written production of single words by persons with aphasia have yielded promising results and there is growing interest in interventions targeting text writing. The development of technical writing aids offers opportunities for persons with aphasia, and studies have shown that using them can have a positive impact on written output., Aims: The aim was to investigate what impact training to use a computerised spell checker had on text writing in persons with aphasia., Methods & Procedures: The study had a multiple-baseline single-case experimental design replicated across six male Swedish participants with mild-to-moderate post-stroke aphasia. The participants received training twice a week during 8 weeks, learning how to use the spell checker. At baseline and before every session, the participants wrote two texts which were logged in a keystroke-logging tool. Dependent variables were continuously measured in the texts, and the participants performed tests of language function and answered questionnaires on reading and writing habits and health-related quality of life before and after the intervention. The participants were also interviewed about how they had experienced the training. The results were evaluated on individual and group level., Results: The study showed that systematic individual training involving a spell checker was experienced as positive by the participants and that they all described their writing ability in more positive terms after the intervention. Evaluation showed statistically significant improvements on group level for the dependent variables of spelling accuracy, rated syntax, writing speed and proportion of unedited text during text writing when using the spell checker. The intervention also had a generalising effect on writing speed and editing during text writing without the spell checker and on spelling accuracy in a dictation test. The participants who had the greatest spelling problems were the ones who showed the most progress, but participants with only minor writing difficulties at baseline also improved., Conclusions & Implications: The study shows that a digital spelling aid constitutes effective support for people with aphasia and may also affect levels other than spelling. The training had a generalising positive effect on text writing and spelling in a test. Although writing difficulties is a persisting symptom in aphasia, it can be supported and improved through use of digital spelling aids. Hence, treatment of writing ability should always be included in the rehabilitation of people with aphasia., What This Paper Adds: What is already known on this subject Use of a technical writing aid can have a positive impact on the written output of persons with aphasia. Using a digital spell checker may improve spelling as well as other levels of writing, but it has not been investigated using a keystroke-logging tool in combination with language-test scores and results from questionnaires. What this paper adds to existing knowledge Through analyses on both individual and group level, this study shows that a digital spelling aid constitutes effective support for people with aphasia and also affects levels other than spelling. The training had a generalising positive effect on text writing and spelling in a test. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Digital spelling support, which is a relatively simple and inexpensive technology, can support and improve text writing in persons with post-stroke aphasia., (© 2021 The Authors. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.)

Second language writing researchers have examined the affordances of Automated Writing Evaluation programs in providing immediate feedback that helps improve students' writing outputs. However, a little is known about tracking learners' process during writing essays and whether much/less pauses made by learners could predict good/poor quality of students' writing output. This article aims to address this issue by recording a case study of 8 postgraduate students' pauses during writing two types of text genre; descriptive and argumentative essays. Their pauses have been recorded using Keystroke logging program-Input Log 7.0 (Leijten and Van Waes in Writ Commun 30:358-392, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088313491692) and their screen activities were captured by Active Presenter program. Findings revealed that the students' pauses were significantly higher in word boundary than in sentence and/or paragraph boundaries. Moreover, on word boundary, pauses before words were significantly higher than that after words for both types of text genre. Concerning pauses across text genre, students' pauses were significantly higher in the argumentative essay than that of the descriptive essay. Multiple regression revealed negative correlation between much pauses and poor quality of students' product in the descriptive essay while there was no correlation found in the argumentative essay.

What do spelling errors look like in children with sign language knowledge but with variation in hearing background, and what strategies do these children rely on when they learn how to spell in written language? Earlier research suggests that the spelling of children with hearing loss is different, because of their lack of hearing, which requires them to rely on other strategies. In this study, we examine whether, and how, different variables such as hearing degree, sign language knowledge and bilingualism may affect the spelling strategies of children with Swedish sign language, Svenskt teckenspråk , (STS) knowledge, and whether these variables can be mirrored in these children's spelling. The spelling process of nineteen children with STS knowledge (mean age: 10.9) with different hearing degrees, born into deaf families, is described and compared with a group of fourteen hearing children without STS knowledge (mean age: 10.9). Keystroke logging was used to investigate the participants' writing process. The spelling behavior of the children was further analyzed and categorized into different spelling error categories. The results indicate that many children showed exceptionally few spelling errors compared to earlier studies, that may derive from their early exposure of STS, enabling them to use the fingerspelling strategy. All of the children also demonstrated similar typing skills. The deaf children showed a tendency to rely on a visual strategy during spelling, which may result in incorrect, but visually similar, words, i.e., a type of spelling errors not found in texts by hearing children with STS knowledge. The deaf children also showed direct transfer from STS in their spelling. It was found that hard-of-hearing children together with hearing children of deaf adults (CODAs), both with STS knowledge, used a sounding strategy, rather than a visual strategy. Overall, this study suggests that the ability to hear and to use sign language, together and respectively, play a significant role for the spelling patterns and spelling strategies used by the children with and without hearing loss., (Copyright © 2019 Gärdenfors, Johansson and Schönström.)

Observational learning has shown to be a successful intervention for writing. Until now, however, studies have only been performed with normal-hearing participants, usually high school or university students. Additionally, there have been conflicting results in whether subjective text quality correlates with one or more objectively measured text characteristics. In this study, we measured the effect of observational learning in a group of four university students with hearing impairment, and compared the results with those of a group of 10 students with normal hearing who did the same intervention, and those of a control group consisting of 10 students with normal hearing who did not do the intervention. Subjective text quality ratings and nine objectively measured text characteristics were collected for three argumentative texts written by each of the participants. In between writing these three texts, the participants in the experimental groups watched a video of a model writer who read out loud and corrected a similar kind of text. The statistical analysis showed significant correlations between the subjective ratings and four out of the nine objective measures, but no significant intervention effect. These findings suggest that observation-learning intervention is most effective when the model writer is a peer learner, and when the intervention is stretched out over time. Additionally, the method may be better suited for learners younger than the ones who were included in the present study.

This baseline study aimed to create a coherent set of images that can be used to describe language decline found in healthy elderly and to compare this to the language change found in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. To this extend, a typed picture naming task was created, in which visual complexity, age-of-acquisition, frequency and name agreement were controlled for. 76 healthy elderly participated in the test; their data will be used in follow-up studies to compare with cognitively impaired patients. The entire typing process was logged with keystroke logging tools Inputlog and Scriptlog; the obtained results were analysed in light of the typing product (name agreement and object recognition) and the writing process (naming latencies and interkey latencies). Results showed that the latencies increased with age and that the older participants had longer latencies for images with a lower frequency and higher age-of-acquisition. Hence, our results indicate the need to take both the latencies and the typing product into consideration.

Background: Low-grade glioma (LGG) is a type of brain tumour often situated in or near areas involved in language, sensory or motor functions. Depending on localization and tumour characteristics, language or cognitive impairments due to tumour growth and/or surgical resection are obvious risks. One task that may be at risk is writing, both because it requires intact language and memory function and because it is a very complex and cognitively demanding task. The most commonly reported language deficit in LGG patients is oral lexical-retrieval difficulties, and poor lexical retrieval would be expected to affect writing fluency., Aims: To explore whether writing fluency is affected in LGG patients before and after surgery and whether it is related to performance on tasks of oral lexical retrieval., Methods & Procedures: Twenty consecutive patients with presumed LGG wrote a narrative and performed a copy task before undergoing surgery and at 3-month follow-up using keystroke-logging software. The same tasks were performed by a reference group (N = 31). The patients were also tested using the Boston Naming Test (BNT) and word-fluency tests before and after surgery. Writing fluency was compared between the patients and the reference group, and between the patients before and after surgery. Relationships between performance on tests of oral lexical retrieval and writing fluency were investigated both before and after surgery., Outcome & Results: Different aspects of writing fluency were affected in the LGG patients both before and after surgery. However, when controlling for the effect of typing speed, the LGG group differed significantly from the reference group only in the proportion of pauses within words. After surgery, a significant decline was seen in production rate and typing speed in the narrative task, and a significant increase was seen in pauses before words. Strong positive relationships were found between oral lexical retrieval and writing fluency both before and after surgery., Conclusions & Implications: Although aspects of writing fluency were affected both before and after surgery, the results indicate that typing speed is an important factor behind the pre-surgery differences. However, the decline in overall productivity and the increase in pauses before words after surgery could be related to a lexical deficit. This is supported by the finding that oral lexical-retrieval scores were strongly correlated with writing fluency. However, further exploration is needed to identify the language and cognitive abilities affecting writing processes in LGG patients., (© 2018 The Authors International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.)