Written Language and Composition Skills Flashcards

A CALT analyzes a 10-year-old's writing sample and finds that the student consistently omits the regular past tense morpheme (-ed) in written compositions but accurately produces irregular past tense forms (e.g., 'went,' 'brought,' 'fell'). This dissociation most likely reflects:

Answer: A rule-governed morphological processing deficit, with irregular forms intact because they are stored as discrete lexical entries

Regular past tense forms (e.g., -ed) require rule-governed morphological processing applied in real time, while irregular past tense forms (e.g., 'went') are stored as complete lexical entries in long-term memory and do not require rule application. Accurate irregular forms with consistent errors on regular forms is a hallmark dissociation pointing to a deficit in morphological rule application, not phonological or orthographic mapping broadly.

According to the Simple View of Writing (Berninger & Winn, 2006), which of the following most accurately describes the relationship between transcription skills and text generation in producing written composition?

Answer: Transcription and text generation are multiplicative; significant deficits in either component suppress overall composition quality

The Simple View of Writing models written composition as the product (not the sum) of transcription skills and text generation, with executive functions as moderators. A multiplicative relationship means that severe deficiency in either component — even with strength in the other — dramatically reduces overall output. This is why a student who is a strong thinker but a poor speller still produces poor written compositions.

A CALT is scoring a student's writing using T-unit analysis. The student writes: 'Although he studied every night, he still failed the test, which surprised his teacher.' How many T-units does this constitute?

Answer: One T-unit, because the entire sentence contains only one main clause with all subordinate clauses attached to it

A T-unit (minimal terminable unit) is defined as one main clause plus all subordinate clauses and non-clausal structures attached to or embedded in it. This sentence has exactly one main clause ('he still failed the test'), to which both the adverbial subordinate clause ('Although he studied every night') and the relative clause ('which surprised his teacher') are attached or embedded. Regardless of clause count, the T-unit count is one. A common error is to count clauses rather than main clauses.

In assessing written text cohesion in an expository essay written by a student with language-based learning disabilities, a CALT identifies the following cohesive device: 'The researchers published their findings in 2023. __ confirmed that phonological training was effective.' (with the subject of the second sentence omitted). Which cohesive device is illustrated, and why is it diagnostically significant?

Answer: Ellipsis; it is significant because it demands the writer's metalinguistic awareness of what information is recoverable by the reader from shared discourse context

Ellipsis occurs when a grammatically required element is omitted because it is recoverable from the prior discourse (here, the subject 'They/The researchers' is omitted). It is among the most sophisticated cohesive devices because the writer must accurately model what the reader can reconstruct from context — a high metalinguistic demand. Students with language-based learning disabilities often either over-use low-level cohesion (lexical reiteration) or produce uninterpretable ellipsis by omitting elements that are NOT recoverable.

A CALT is planning sentence-level written language intervention for a student with syntactic weaknesses. Placing instruction in its correct developmental and complexity sequence, which ordering is most appropriate for introducing sentence combining targets?

Answer: Compound coordination → adverbial subordinate clauses → embedded relative clauses → nominalization

The research-supported developmental sequence for syntactic complexity in written language moves from coordination (compound sentences using 'and,' 'but,' 'so') to subordination with adverbial clauses (temporal, causal, conditional) to relative clauses embedded within noun phrases to nominalization (converting verbs/adjectives into noun forms, e.g., 'investigate' → 'investigation'), which represents the highest level of morphosyntactic density. Instruction should follow this progression to build from accessible structures to more complex ones.

A student scores at the 45th percentile on a standardized spelling dictation subtest but at the 9th percentile on a written composition measure requiring independent essay generation. A CALT interpreting this profile within a written language framework would most accurately conclude that:

Answer: The dissociation implicates a primary deficit in text generation processes — including ideation, planning, syntactic formulation, and revision — with relatively preserved transcription skills

When transcription skills (spelling, punctuation) are relatively intact but independent composition quality is significantly impaired, the Simple View of Writing framework localizes the deficit to text generation processes: planning and organizing ideas, translating them into syntactically adequate sentences, managing discourse-level coherence, and revising. This dissociation guides intervention toward composition strategy instruction (e.g., SRSD) rather than spelling or phonics remediation. Option D is a common distractor but is ruled out because transcription skill — not just working memory load during spelling — is the operationalized construct.