Morphological Processing in Children with Developmental Dyslexia: A Visual Masked Priming Study

Abstract

This study examined the processing of derivational morphology and its association with early phonological skills of 24 Dutch‐speaking children with dyslexia and 46 controls matched for age. A masked priming experiment was conducted where the semantic overlap between morphologically related pairs was manipulated as part of a lexical decision task. Results suggest that morphological processing is intact in children with dyslexia when compared to age‐matched controls. Significant priming effects were found in each group. Children with dyslexia were found to solely benefit from the morpho‐semantic information, while the morpho‐orthographic form the properties of morphemes‐influenced controls. Due to the longitudinal nature of the data set, an examination of early phonological awareness’s role in the later development of morphological processing skills was possible. In line with the psycholinguistic grain‐size theory, fifth‐grade morphological processing in children with dyslexia was found to be negatively correlated to earlier second‐grade PA skills. A similar relation was not found among the controls. Results indicate a potential shift in the cognitive processes involved during reading to compensate for the observed phonological deficits of children with dyslexia.

What’s morphology got to do with it: Oral reading fluency in adolescents with dyslexia.

“…The absence of morpho-orthographic priming in individuals with dyslexia was interpreted as demonstrating the reliance on the semantic properties of morphemes during early visual word recognition. In support of this hypothesis, Law, Veispak, et al (2018) and Law and Ghesquière (2021) reported larger priming effects in the morphological condition than in the pseudoderivation condition among Dutch-speaking university students and fifth-grade children with dyslexia, suggesting that the semantic properties of morphemes are processed during morphological processing. Furthermore, in the longitudinal study of Law and Ghesquière (2021), morphological processing in fifth-grade children with dyslexia was found to be negatively correlated with second-grade phonological skills, while no relation was observed among age-matched controls.…”

“…Phonological skill deficits are considered as a risk factor for dyslexia (e.g., Hulme and Snowling, 2016 ; Snowling, 2000). In parallel, the relatively preserved morphological skills (the explicit or implicit reliance on morphemes during language processing) in individuals with dyslexia have been suggested to act as a compensatory skill set that can minimize the expression of, or the risk associated with, a phonological deficit (Cavalli, Duncan, et al, 2017 ; Elbro & Arnbak, 1996; Law et al, 2015; Law, Veispak, et al, 2018; Law & Ghesquière, 2021; Quémart & Casalis, 2015). As a result of their impaired ability to map graphemes and phonemes (Law, De Vos, et al, 2018), individuals with dyslexia may vary from typical readers in the use of cognitive processes while reading (Leikin & Hagit, 2006).…”

“…Although few studies have provided evidence of a weakness in the morphological skills of individuals with dyslexia (Leikin & Hagit, 2006; Schiff & Raveh, 2007), a growing body of literature has reported rather intact morphological skills in this population (Cavalli et al, 2016; Elbro & Arnbak, 1996; Law et al, 2015; Law, Veispak, et al, 2018; Law & Ghesquière, 2021; Quémart & Casalis, 2015). For instance, Elbro and Arnbak (1996) demonstrated that, when compared with typical readers, adolescents with dyslexia were more fluent in reading semantically transparent morphologically complex words, where the meaning of the derived word and its morphological components are closely related (e.g., the base “happy” is closely related to the meaning of “happiness,” while “corn” would not be considered semantically linked to “corner”; Bell & Schäfer, 2016).…”

Arabic metalinguistic knowledge predicts reading comprehension: A scoping review

“…Previous inquiries into reading development have con rmed that reading acquisition is fundamentally metalinguistic (Nagy and Anderson, 1984). Across numerous alphabetic languages, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and orthographic awareness have been found to be signi cant predictors of reading achievement independent of non-verbal skills, vocabulary, and word reading skills (morphological awareness: Nagy et al, 2006;Foorman et al, 2012;Kirby et al, 2012;Law and Cavalli, 2020;Law and Ghesquière, 2022;Lefèvre et al, 2022; phonological awareness: Goswami, 1990; Ehri et al, 2001;Carlisle, 2003;Roman et al, 2009;and orthographic knowledge: Snowling, 2000;Goswami, 2005;Florit and Cain, 2011). For instance, past intervention studies focusing on systematic instruction and explicit instruction in metalinguistic awareness skills have demonstrated its ability to improve children's early reading skills and reduce reading failure (Moats, 1994;Bos et al, 2001;Mather et al, 2001;Hurry and Sylva, 2007;Arrow et al, 2019;Washburn and Mulcahy, 2019).…”

Scoping the field of literacy research: how might a range of research be valuable to primary teachers?

“…This group also includes studies that focus on different groups of learners. These include:Law and Ghesquière's (2021) exploration of the relationship between morphological and phonological processing by dyslexic students; van Bergen at al. (2021)'s study of the effects of children of different ages of choosing to read on reading fluency and comprehension; Proctor et al's (2019) examination of use of the effects of academic language use by bilingual children; Schmidt et al (2021)'s analysis of differences in phonological information processing for children with and without learning difficulties; and Herman and Kyle's (2019) analysis of the support needed by deaf children and those with dyslexia.Morphological instruction is the focus for a significant body of work in this cate gory, with several articles deriving from the special issue on morphology in Journal of Research in Reading.…”