Comparison of writing and drawing performance of dyslexic boys

A group of 10 dyslexic boys and 10 control boys matched for age and nonverbal IQ were asked to draw a person and to write about their favourite television program. The two groups did not differ on mean raw scores or time taken on the drawing but differed in number of spelling errors and writing time. The ratios of spelling/number of words written and grammatical errors/number of words written differed for the groups. The former measure was reliable at 8-mo. retest for dyslexics and the latter was reliable at 8 mo. for controls. Correlations between measures showed a different pattern for the dyslexics and controls.