The Importance of Letter and Word Writing for Classifying Writing Skills of Children with Typically Developing Language and Those At-Risk for Developmental Language Disorder

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify profiles of emergent writing skills of 4- and 5-year-old preschoolers with typical language skills as well as those at-risk for developmental language disorder (DLD).Method: This study used a cross-sectional design. Eighty-two 4- and 5-year-old preschoolers (63 with typically developing language skills, 19 at-risk for DLD) participated in two testing sessions to assess their language and emergent writing skills. We conducted a k-means cluster analysis to develop profiles of emergent writing skills.Results: We developed three profiles of writing abilities within our sample using letter and word writing scores: Beginning Writing, Intermediate Writing, and Advanced Writing. Most preschoolers at-risk for DLD (68%) fell in the Beginning Writing cluster, while children with typically developing language skills were almost equally distributed across profiles. The ALL Emergent Literacy Index was the only consistent predictor of profile membership. Conclusions: This study highlights the importance of letter and word writing skills in preschool, particularly for children with DLD. It also confirms the heterogeneity of preschoolers’ writing skills and emphasizes a critical need for additional writing measures to capture the nuances in letter writing developmental trajectories.