title: A selective deficit for writing vowels in acquired dysgraphia.
abstract: Brain-damaged patients with acquired writing disorders provide important information about the normal processes of spelling and writing. Current models indicate that to produce a letter string, its 'abstract' representation is computed and stored in a temporary orthographic buffer, from which it is converted to a verbal code (if the word is to be spelled aloud) or to a physical letter code (if the word is to be written). The stored graphemic representations specify the identity and order of the component letters and their consonant/vowel status. Here I describe the spelling performance of two patients with a selective deficit in writing vowels. When writing words, the first patient omitted all vowels, leaving a blank space between consonants or consonant clusters, whereas the second produced errors that almost exclusively involved vowels. This pattern of performance supports the hypothesis that the consonant/vowel status of graphemes is differentially specified in the spelling process and may be selectively affected after brain damage.
authors.affiliation: Rehabilitation Department Ospedale Maggiore, Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cubelli
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D006429:Hemiplegia / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D014956:Writing