Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucsd!nprdc!ellis From: ellis@nprdc.arpa (John Ellis) Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.cog-eng,sci.psychology Subject: Re: Spelling and Perceptual Mode (was: Effects of poor writing?) Message-ID: <2055@arctic.nprdc.arpa> Date: 22 May 89 20:23:59 GMT References: <39131@bbn.COM> <1982@trantor.harris-atd.com> <187@intek01.UUCP> <8068@thorin.cs.unc.edu> <4412@ttidca.TTI.COM> <16063@sequent.UUCP> <2010@hp-sdd.hp.com> <748@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> Sender: news@nprdc.arpa Reply-To: ellis@nprdc.arpa (John Ellis) Distribution: na Organization: Navy Personnel R&D Center, San Diego Lines: 16 Xref: utzoo sci.lang:4589 comp.cog-eng:1140 sci.psychology:1961 > > I would bet that given a "real" cross-section of individuals (think of > testing everyone that enters the DMV for example) you would find quite > a tidy correlation between performance on a spelling test and a standard > IQ test: say, 0.3 to 0.4. Why this is, as well as what it means to > designers, educators, and we, the poor spellers, is an open question. > You would lose -- As I posted a couple of weeks ago, research has discovered that poor spelling is a form of dyslexia that is an inherited trait -- the problem is that some people have difficulty visualizing letter and numbers (e.g. phone numbers) in the correct sequences This same research shows that there is no correlation between spelling and intelligence! J. Ellis