The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the performance levels and error patterns in spelling Korean words between elementary children with visual impairments and those without visual impairments. A total of 49 children with visual impair...
The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the performance levels and error patterns in spelling Korean words between elementary children with visual impairments and those without visual impairments. A total of 49 children with visual impairments at four schools for the blind in four different cities and a total of 71 children without visual impairments at two regular elementary schools in a metropolitan city were recruited to participate in this study. Children with visual impairments were in the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grades, while those without visual impairments were all in the fifth-grade. All the children dictated 66 words from the Han-geul Spelling Test developed for this study.
The Test consisted of two areas (Sound and Form, respectively) with 66 words, six words for each of 11 subareas. The researcher visited each school and administered the test to the children. Independent-sample t tests and chi-square tests showed that the performance levels of children with visual impairments in spelling Korean words were significantly lower than those of children without visual impairments. Analyses of error patterns indicated that those of children with visual impairments were much more diverse than those of children without visual impairments.