Young children, who are exposed to Latin script letters, experience difficulties in distinguishing between the reversible letters b and d and may therefore transform b into d (and vice versa). When children begin to write, in cultures with left-to-right writing/reading systems, they also often turn Arabic digits in the direction of writing/reading, thus, for example, producing e instead of 3. However, two different terms or processes, namely, confusion and reversal, are used in the literature to label these apparent transformations. This study aimed to provide empirical evidence that the two processes are indeed very different. The sample consisted of 529 first graders (M[subscript age] = 6.21 years) who participated in the French National Assessment at the beginning of the school year. Simple linear, Bayesian, and logistic regression modeling of the left-right reversal rate in writing digits as a function of the confusion rate in children's recognition of the letters b and d showed a negative relationship between the two rates, and a nonparametric test yielded a significant negative correlation (r[subscript S](318) = -0.373, p < 0.001). These results seem to rule out the possibility that the same process leads to reversing characters (letters or digits) in writing and misrecognizing b as d (or vice versa). This is the first study reporting strong empirical evidence that the processes of reversal and confusion are very different. Consequently, it would be a mistake to treat confusion between b and d as the reversal of b into d (and vice versa).