Affiliations: Graduate Program in Speech and Language Pathology,
Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea | Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Yonsei
University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea | Department of Neurology, Samsung Medical Center,
Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
Note: [] Corresponding author: HyangHee Kim, Ph.D., Graduate Program in
Speech and Language Pathology & Department of Rehabilitation Medicine,
Yonsei University College of Medicine, Shinchon-dong 134, Seodaemun-gu 120-752,
Korea. Tel.: +82 2 2228 3900; Fax: +82 2 2227 7578; E-mail: h.kim@yonsei.ac.kr
Abstract: Dysgraphia due to a focal brain lesion can be characterized by
substitution, transposition, deletion and/or addition errors of graphemes or
strokes. However, those linguistic errors can be language-specific because the
writing system of a given language may influence error patterns. We
investigated a Korean stroke patient, a 57-year-old English teacher with
dysgraphia both in Korean Han-geul {(\psfig{figure=ben15901.eps,width=6mm})}
and in English alphabet writings. The results of an experimental testing
revealed transposition errors between a consonant and a vowel only in English
but not in Korean writings. This austerity of vowel-consonant position may be
attributed to a unique Korean writing system of a spatially well-formed
syllabic configuration or block with consonant(s) and a vowel. In light of a
neuropsychological model of writing, which depicts a multi-level spelling and
writing process, we suggest a spatial-constructional component of internal
orthographic representations in Korean writing. This Korean graphemic
configuration feature may be resistant to a focal, left cerebral damage, and
thus, we also discuss our results in terms of cerebral lateralization of the
writing processes.
