Investigation of the influence of visual attention span and a range of literacy-related variables on writing (spelling) to dictation in Mandarin-speaking children aged 10 to 12 years

This study explored the influence of a range of literacy-related variables on writing (spelling) to dictation in Mandarin-speaking children aged 10 to 12 years. The children were assessed with tasks of nonverbal ability, phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatised naming (RAN), visual attention span, character identification, morphological awareness (MA), vocabulary, and verbal short-term memory. Visual attention span (VAS) was assessed with a global report task using Chinese characters. Results of hierarchical regression analysis revealed that PA, RAN, MA and character identification significantly explained 54% of the variance in spelling accuracy. After controlling for these predictors, age and nonverbal ability, VAS scores predicted a further 6% of the variance. The path analysis suggested the mediating role of VAS between RAN and spelling accuracy. The results support the view that visual simultaneous processing plays an important role in spelling in Chinese due to the complex nature of the orthography.