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I been told that spelling ability (good orthography) is correlated with intelligence (which is a nice way to say: if you are bad with orthography, you are stupid). So far I have been unable to find a conclusive evidence based answer

I found this link, that says there is a correlation between personality and orthography (if you are more confident, you are more likely to make mistakes).

And this article at the Straight Dope which says that if your spelling mistakes are from dyslexia you are not necessary stupid.

But neither of them answers my question. Is there a correlation with adult intelligence? (I do not believe so, because I have met smart people that are bad at spelling, but they might be an anomaly.) So I would really like to know if that is the way it works in the majority of the cases.

Luxspes
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    As for most of the question regarding intelligence it really depends on how you define intelligence. It is certain that many people who have bad ortography probably did not have a good education, and certainly lack of education may influence their IQ (if that is how you want to define intelligence). – nico Jun 28 '13 at 21:23
  • There was a time (e.g. in the Middle Ages) when only people the most educated people could write at all. Conversely, I read recently that they don't teach orthography in school these days. – ChrisW Jun 28 '13 at 22:03
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    ^ When I said "orthography" there I meant "correct hand-writing": not just spelling or typing on a keyboard. – ChrisW Jun 28 '13 at 22:04
  • I don't know about English, but in the past, French orthography wasn't as strict as it is today. Therefore, it did not matter that much, even among educated people who could write properly. I think it has more to do with discipline, and the ability to comply to rules. – Aeronth Jun 28 '13 at 23:12
  • @ChrisW: now, not many people able to type on a keyboard in those days, eh? :D – nico Jun 29 '13 at 07:59
  • Is your question limited to English? I would assume that the answer may be very different depending on the type of writing system and if the relation between spoken and written language is very strict, e.g. like in Finnish, or just barely existing like in English :) – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Jun 30 '13 at 17:44
  • Could you indicate how/why the *Straight Dope* article doesn’t answer your question? It seems pretty clear to me but if you’re looking for something else please tell us what exactly you want in an answer. – Konrad Rudolph Jul 01 '13 at 10:10
  • @nico - typical IQ tests are education-agnostic and are more geared towards reasoning and pattern recognition. – user5341 Jul 03 '13 at 15:30
  • @KonradRudolph, the Straight Dope article only says that if you are dyslexic you are unlikely to be stupid, and leaves it there, it does not really deal with the issue beyond forgiving dyslexics... And it then discredits its only source... also the other article I found says the correlation is with personality not IQ contradicting the Straight Dope article and therefore making me want to know if there is a definitive answer – Luxspes Jul 08 '13 at 12:30
  • The question is not limited to a particular language... On the other it would be interesting to know if there are significant differences between languages – Luxspes Jul 08 '13 at 12:35
  • Also note that for a large part of the history of English, there was no standardised spelling. For example, [Shakespeare could not consistently spell his own name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_of_Shakespeare's_name) amongst other English words. – March Ho Nov 22 '15 at 01:23
  • Through the lens of Howard Gardner those who are poor at spelling may be short of the [linguistic, logical-mathematical, and intrapersonal intelligences](https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=bgsu1143478801&disposition=inline), which are just three of the eight different cognitive abilities that all people are supposed to have in nature. The aforementioned study indicates that other abilities may affect the the learning of orthography very little. So you can say that they may be stupid in terms of linguistic, logical-mathematical and intrapersonal intelligences. – Lerner Zhang Nov 22 '15 at 08:32
  • @user5341. Typical IQ tests *try* to be education-agnostic. I find it hard to believe that they could fully succeed in this aim. – TRiG Nov 23 '15 at 13:04
  • "Just a polite way of saying you are stupid". That's waaay off the mark. – gnasher729 Nov 23 '15 at 20:26
  • I am so sick and tired of the gross overuse of the words `intelligence` and `correlation`. There is **no** deffiniton for the former while the one for the former is very specific -> **linear** association. If you omit the specifier "adult" the statement becomes trivially true - very few people under the age of 3 are literate. – Vorac Sep 08 '20 at 11:54

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An (small) experiment about correlation between orthographic and logical-mathematical skills was made on 10-year-old children in 2013. The 60 children studied were finally divided in 3 groups:

  1. "standard" children that succeeded in most tests in both dommains,
  2. children having written language difficulties,
  3. children followed for logical difficulties.

The results showed that:

  • group 2 experiencing real difficulties on grammatical spelling activities often have good performance on logic.
  • group 3 had an homogeneous profile with difficulties in both tested fields.

The conclusion would then be that logical-mathematical difficulties are generally associated with spelling problems. But, bad ortograph doesn't necessarily imply limited "intelligence".

Source: Corrélation entre le niveau d’orthographe grammaticale et les compétences logico-mathématiques. (short summary in English at the end of the document).

Graffito
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