As someone who earned a doctorate in Composition and Rhetoric, an
English doctorate often also called Writing Studies, I am shocked that
this kind of research passes in the medical field and in such a
prestigious journal as Pediatrics. While I am in no way adverse to
clinical investigations of learning difficulties and inquiries into
psychobiological factors attributing to poor school performance, I am
disillusioned by this study's uncritical attitude toward the entire corpus
of research on writing that has emerged over the past forty or more years.
It appears the study confuses fine motor functions, such as
handwriting, with higher-level cognitive tasks such as syntax and
paragraphing. Moreover, as research has repeatedly shown, the kinds of
tasks writers are expected to perform greatly influences their outcomes so
that a student who is able to write a narrative quite well may struggle
and actually regress in writing ability when it comes to an analytical
essay. Yet such variables appear unaccounted by Dr. Katusic and her team.
Most disconcerting is the treatment of writing itself as a measurable
quantity. This confuses what is a completely qualitative measure for
something quantifiable. The quality of writing is a judgment based in
social norms and expectations, norms which not only vary in an ethnically
and socioeconomic diverse community such as Rochester, Minnesota but which
also vary within otherwise homogenous communities and regions (to which, I
ask investigators to at least acknowledge Shirley Brice Heath's seminal
study, _Ways With Words_). Conflating WLD with a "basic level"
designation by the National Center for Educational Statistics is simply
bad science.
Rhetoric-Composition and Writing Studies have used psychological
testing for decades (see the work by Linda Flower and John Hayes). If
clinical researchers wish to investigate problems in school-based writing
as either a matter of psychology or epidemiology, it seems incumbent upon
them to consult all the literature, not only those that fit their own
purposes.
Conflict of Interest:
None declared
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