Empirical Studies on the Writing Abilities of Adolescents and Adults with Learning Difficulties

Scholarship from the fields of sociolinguistics, cognitive psychology, and neurolinguistics influence our understanding of the development of written expression across the lifespan. Neurolinguistics and cognitive psychology research provide evidence of the many different cognitive and language processes influencing writing tasks (Berninger & Winn, 2006; Torrance & Galbraith, 2006). Understanding how specific processes (e.g., working memory, executive functioning, orthographic awareness) influence different aspects of written expression performance directly informs our intervention and accommodation decision-making (Gregg, 2009). Strategic learning relies not only on the cognitive abilities of writers, but also their experiences, self-efficacy beliefs, and motivation for writing (Pajares & Valiante, 2006). Researchers applying sociolinguistic