Peer-reviewed research
Spelling impairments in Spanish dyslexic adults
Olivia Afonso et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 2015 · DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00466
Read the originalRead on October 17, 2026
- What it is
- A study of Spanish-speaking adults with dyslexia and matched controls, who copied, wrote to dictation and named pictures in writing, and spelled by typing, handwriting and aloud. It tests whether spelling difficulties continue into adulthood.
- How much weight it carries
- Peer-reviewed open-access article from a university research group. The sample is small and the language is Spanish, which has a transparent spelling system, so English spelling may differ. The study compares spelling tasks, not real typing sessions or dictated drafts.
Facts taken from this source
- In a 2015 study of Spanish adults with dyslexia, spelling performance was comparable whether the output was typing, handwriting or oral spelling.
“significant effect of word length. Moreover, they perform comparably across modality of input ... across modality of output (typing, handwriting, oral spelling)” (Discussion)
- In a 2015 study of Spanish adults, the adults with dyslexia were significantly slower than the control group at writing in both tasks.
“the dyslexics were significantly slower than the controls in both tasks” (Discussion)
- In a 2015 study of Spanish adults, the adults with dyslexia made errors affecting individual letters or letter groups, through substitutions, deletions, additions and transpositions, and word length significantly affected their errors.
“make errors affecting individual graphemes (substitutions, deletions, additions, transpositions), and they show a significant effect of word length” (Discussion)
- The 2015 study of Spanish adults with dyslexia says its finding that spelling difficulties persist in adulthood applies at least to a language with transparent spelling, such as Spanish.
“Results were consistent with the hypothesis that spelling difficulties are present in adults with dyslexia, at least in a language with a transparent orthography such as Spanish” (Abstract)