ABSTRACT
This chapter is organized into six sections, each of which contributes to understanding the writing brain. In the œrst section, we explain that writing is not the opposite of reading and clarify the ways writing differs from reading. In the second section, we discuss important general principles from research based on losing previously acquired writing functions following brain disease or injury or on normal adult writing. In the third section, the focus changes to how the developing brain acquires writing in both normally developing child writers and children with writing disabilities. We summarize the œndings from a series of œve brain imaging studies in which children aged 10 to 11, who were normally developing writers or had dysgraphia, that is, handwriting and spelling disability, performed idea generation, spelling, handwriting, orthographic coding, and œnger sequencing tasks while their brains were scanned in the summer between œfth and sixth grade. In the fourth section, we discuss brain imaging œndings from a series of studies of a contrasting disorder in which children had both spelling and reading disability (dyslexia) and how they differed from normal spellers and readers before and after treatment. In the œfth section, an evidence-based theory of change related to development of spelling, a transcription process that supports text generation during the cognitive → language translation process, is proposed. In the œnal section, the case is made for more brain imaging studies on writing. Throughout the chapter, readers may consult the following web resources when speciœc brain regions are referenced to œnd their location in visual displays of brain: for PC users, “Brain Atlas with Brodmann’s Numbers” at https://www.cabiatl.com/mricro/ mricro/mricro.html#Installation; for Mac users œrst install SPM, which requires metlab, and then go to https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/SPM/Installation_on_Mac_OS_%28Intel%29.
