Written production: spelling and cognitive-emotional load

The aim is to better define the relationship between emotions and writing and spelling processes in children and adolescents, and their reciprocal effects. Through the activity of written production, a multitude of emotional states may emerge, linked in particular to the content of the text being written.

Conversely, daily written school activities can have an impact on emotional fluctuations and other activities. Exploring the effect of emotional prompts on children at different grade levels should reveal whether writing about an “emotional” topic has an effect on textual processes. At the same time, varying the frequency, regularity, and consistency of the vocabulary used in dictation tasks should reveal an interaction between emotions, cognitive load in working memory, and spelling processes.

The ultimate goal of the project is to develop a model of the effect of emotions on writing and spelling processes during development. Writing skills will also be studied in participants with particular emotional sensitivity, namely intellectually gifted children.
Still with a view to analyzing the reciprocity between emotion and cognition, the paradigm of expressive writing will be studied in children and adolescents. This involves asking participants to write repeatedly about sad and stressful personal events, which is thought to have a cognitive restructuring effect and improve the writer’s emotional state. Initial results in adults and adolescents are quite encouraging and show a majority of participants experiencing a favorable effect of expressive writing, with possible cognitive restructuring effects.

Across the board, particular attention will be paid to learning French spelling, which is relatively long and complex. The difficulties encountered lie in the lexical inconsistency of the language and the opacity of morphological markers without phonological counterparts. Usually, these two spelling dimensions are studied separately. The project will study lexical spelling and grammatical spelling together, with the aim of developing tools for more effective intervention in schools. Indeed, it seems necessary to develop assessment tools that integrate these two aspects of spelling to help teachers quickly identify at-risk students.