Spelling and Morphology in Dyslexia: A Developmental Study Across the School Years

Abstract

The current study examined the effect of morphological knowledge on spelling development in Hebrew-speaking schoolchildren, adolescents and adults with dyslexia, compared with typically developing (TD) peers. Participants were 238 Hebrew-speaking readers of five grade levels of whom 139 were TD and 99 had developmental dyslexia (DD). Participants were tested on a function letter spelling task, a phonological awareness task and a morphological awareness task. The overall picture that emerged from the results is that performance on all measures increased with grade level, with TD participants always scoring higher than peers with DD. Moreover, the higher the morphological complexity in spelling and irregularity in noun inflection, the higher the differences between the DD and TD participants. Finally, performance on the morphological awareness task contributed to spelling morphologically more complex spelling items in the TD, but not in the DD group. From clinical and educational perspectives, these results strongly suggest that rigorous morphological instruction is necessary in teaching children and adolescents with dyslexia to identify and use morphological cues in spoken and written Hebrew. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Studies on spelling in the context of dyslexia: a literature review

“…In dyslexia, spelling impairments are often more extensive and persistent than in reading. This may occur due to difficulties related to the process of phonographic-orthographic conversion and its use to the correct writing of the words [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] . The analysis of the spelling errors made by children, in the educational and medical amplitude, might offer parameters for the identification of what is expected or not, assisting in the elaboration of plans and interventions according to the specificities of the difficulties…”

“…Spelling errors are part of the infant's learning process 1,3,5 . Although kids progressively overcome those errors as they obtain deeper understanding of the features of the orthographic system they use to write, the persistence of errors and the kind of errors they make might indicate some learning disability 3 .…”

“…Researchers point out that, regarding dyslexia, the major focus of most studies has been reading difficulties, and there is less research about the orthographic processing in dyslexic children 2,3,5,[7][8][9] , although to correctly underline words be a challenge that might extend to adulthood 10 . Regarding learning problems, the investigation focus should not be limited to reading characteristics, it is necessary to understand the analysis of writing 3,11 .…”

“…Operational memory activities associated to reading and writing were suggested to be introduced in the intervention program in the spelling difficulties of dyslexic children 7 . Dyslexic Hebrews were subjected to an orthographic intervention program through activities that involved morphological analysis of words 5 .…”

Efficacy of a visuomotor‐based intervention for children with reading and spelling disabilities: a pilot study

“…Although the indication of the DSM-5 (APA, 2013) and several findings suggest an association between learning disability in dyslexia and spelling disability (Lyon et al, 2003;Egan & Tainturier, 2011), the major focus of most studies has been reading disabilities (Bigozzi et al, 2016;Schiff & Levie, 2017). Consequently, most interventional research studies have been dedicated to children with reading disabilities.…”