Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-22T23:19:31.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Role of Morphology in Reading in Spanish-Speaking Children with Dyslexia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2013

Paz Suárez-Coalla  and
Fernando Cuetos
Paz Suárez-Coalla*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Oviedo (Spain)
Fernando Cuetos
Affiliation:
Universidad de Oviedo (Spain)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Paz Suárez-Coalla. Departamento de Psicología. Universidad de Oviedo. Plaza Feijoo s/n. 33003 Oviedo, Asturias (Spain). E-mail: suarezpaz@uniovi.es
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Morphemes facilitate visual word recognition, leading to greater accuracy and fluency in reading morphologically complex words. In children with dyslexia, the morphological structure might be useful to reduce difficulties caused by phonological deficits. The aim of this study was to determine whether Spanish-speaking children with dyslexia benefit from morphemes when reading. A group of children with dyslexia of different ages (7 to 10 years) and a group of children without reading disabilities, matched on chronological age and gender, participated in a task of reading isolated words and pseudowords in which morphological complexity was manipulated. Half of the stimuli were morphologically simple and half morphologically complex. Children with dyslexia benefit from morphology since they have better performance with the morphologically complex stimuli. These results indicate that they are able to develop representations of units larger than the grapheme, what suggests that Spanish-speaking children with dyslexia use the morphological structure to overcome their difficulties in phonological recoding. These results have important implications for the rehabilitation of children with dyslexia.

Keywords

readingtransparent languagedyslexiamorphology
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 16 , 2013 , E51
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This study was funded by Grant PSI-2009-09299 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Gobierno. We also thank the children and their families the disinterested collaboration in this study.

References

Álvarez, C. J., Carreiras, M., & Taft, M. (2001). Syllables and morphemes: Contrasting frequency effects in Spanish. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27, 545–555. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.27.2.545 Google ScholarPubMed
Barca, L., Burani, C., Di Filippo, G., & Zoccolotti, P. (2006). Italian developmental dyslexic and proficient readers: Where are the differences? Brain and Language, 98, 347–351. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2006.05.001 Google Scholar
Burani, C., Marcolini, S., & Stella, G. (2002). How early does morpholexical reading develop in readers of a shallow orthography? Brain and Language, 81, 568–586. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/brln.2001.2548 Google Scholar
Burani, C., Marcolini, S., De Luca, M., & Zoccolotti, P. (2008). Morpheme-based reading aloud: Evidence from dyslexic and skilled Italian readers. Cognition, 108, 243–262. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2007.12.010 Google Scholar
Burani, C., Dovetto, F. M., Spuntarelli, A., & Thornton, A. M. (1999). Morpholexical access and naming: The semantic interpretability of new root-suffix combinations. Brain and Language, 68, 333–339. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/brln.1999.2073 Google Scholar
Carlisle, J. F., & Stone, C. A. (2005). Exploring the role of morphemes in word reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 40, 428–449. http://dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.40.4.3 Google Scholar
Casalis, S., Dusautoir, M., Colé, P., & Ducrot, S. (2009). Morphological relationship in French Fourth Graders: A priming study in visual word recognition. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27, 761–766. http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/026151008X389575 Google Scholar
Colé, P., Leuwers, C., & Sprenger-Charolles, L. (2005, August-September). A morphology-based compensatory reading strategy in adult dyslexics. XIV Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology. Leiden, Holland.Google Scholar
Coltheart, M., Rastle, K., Perry, C., Langdon, R., & Ziegler, J. (2001). DRC: ADual-Route Cascaded model of visual word recognition and reading aloud. Psychological Review, 108, 204–256. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0033-295X.108.1.204 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cuetos, F., & Suárez-Coalla, P. (2009). From grapheme to word in learning to read in Spanish. Applied Psycholinguistics, 30, 583–601. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716409990038 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuetos, R., Rodríguez, B., Ruano, E., & Arribas, D. (2007). PROLEC-R. Batería de evaluación de los procesos lectores, Revisada. [Battery of reading processes assessment-Revised] . Madrid, Spain: TEA.Google Scholar
De Luca, M., Borrelli, M., Judica, A., Spinelli, D., & Zoccolotti, P. (2002). Reading words and pseudowords: An eye movement study of developmental dyslexia. Brain and Language, 80, 617–626. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/brln.2001.2637 Google Scholar
Domínguez, A., Cuetos, F., & Segui, J. (2000). Morphological processing in word recognition. Psicológica, 21, 375–401.Google Scholar
Elbro, C. (1990). Differences in dyslexia. A study of reading strategies and deficits in a linguistic perspective. Copenhagen, Denmark: Munksgaard.Google Scholar
Elbro, C., & Arnback, E. (1996). The role of morpheme recognition and morphological awareness in dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia. 46, 209–240. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02648177 Google Scholar
Forster, K. I., & Forster, J. C. (2003). DMDX: A windows display program with millisecond accuracy. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 35, 116–124. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03195503 Google Scholar
Goswami, U., Ziegler, J., Dalton, L., & Schneider, W. (2001). Pseudohomophone effects and phonological recoding procedures in reading development in English and German, Journal of Memory & Language, 45, 648–664. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jmla.2001.2790 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goswami, U., Ziegler, J., Dalton, L., & Schneider, W. (2003). Nonword reading across orthographies: How flexible is the choice of reading units? Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 235–247. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716403000134 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grainger, J., Lété, B. D., Bertrand, D., Dufau, S., & Ziegler, J. (2012). Evidence for multiple routes in learning to read. Cognition, 123, 280–292. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2012.01.003 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hutzler, F., & Wimmer, H. (2004). Eye movements of dyslexic children when reading in a regular orthography. Brain and Language, 89, 235–242. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0093-934X(03)00401-2 Google Scholar
Marcolini, S., Traficante, D., Zoccolotti, P., & Burani, C. (2011). Word frequency modulates morpheme-based reading in poor and skilled Italian readers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32, 513–532. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716411000191 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marec-Breton, N., Gombert, J. E., & Colé, P. (2005). Traitements morphologiques lors de lareconnaissance des mots écrits chez des apprentis lecteurs [Morphological processing in the written word recognition among readers apprentices]. L’Annee Psychologique, 105, 9–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/psy.2005.3818 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, K., & Brady, S. (2001). Correlates of early reading performance in a transparent orthography. Reading and Writing 14, 757–799.Google Scholar
Protopapas, A. (2007). Check vocal: A program to facilitate checking the accuracy and response time of vocal responses from DMDX. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 859–862. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03192979 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rodrigo, M., Jiménez, J. E., García, E., Díaz, A., Ortíz, M. R., Guzmán, R., … Hernández, S. (2004). Valoración del procesamiento ortográfico en niños españoles con dislexia: El papel de las unidades léxicas y subléxicas [Assessment of orthographical processing in Spanish children with dyslexia: The role of lexical and sublexical units]. Revista Electrónica de Investigación Psicoeducativa y Psicopedagógica, 2, 105–126.Google Scholar
Schreuder, R., Grendel, M., Poulisse, N., Roelofs, A., & van de Voort, M. (1990). Lexical processing, morphological complexity and reading. In Balota, D. A., Flores d’Arcais, G. B., & Rayner, K. (Eds.), Comprehension processes in reading (pp. 125–141). Hillsdale, NJ: LEA Google Scholar
Share, D. L. (1995). Phonological recoding and self-teaching: Sine qua non of reading acquisition. Cognition, 55, 151–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(94)00645-2 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Share, D. L. (1999). Phonological recoding and orthographic learning: A direct test of the self-teaching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 72, 95–129. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jecp.1998.2481 Google Scholar
Spinelli, D., De Luca, M., Di Filippo, G., Manzini, M., Martelli, M., & Zoccolotti, P. (2005). Length effect in word naming in reading: Role of reading experience and reading deficit in Italian readers. Developmental Neuropsychology, 27, 217–235. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326942dn2702_2 Google Scholar
Sprenger-Charolles, L., Cole, P., Lacert, P., & Serniclaes, W. (2000). On subtypes of developmental dyslexia: Evidence from processing time and accuracy scores. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54, 87–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0087332 Google Scholar
Suárez-Coalla, P., & Cuetos, F. (2012). Reading strategies in Spanish developmental dyslexics. Annals of dyslexia, 62, 71–81 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11881-011-0064-y Google Scholar
Traficante, D., Marcolini, S., Luci, A., Zoccolotti, P., & Burani, C. (2011). How do roots and suffixes influence reading of pseudowords: A study of young Italian readers with and without dyslexia. Language and Cognitive Processes, 26, 777–793. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01690965.2010.496553 Google Scholar
van der Leij, A., van Daal, V., & De Jong, P. (2002). Task related factors in reading efficiency of dyslexic children. In Verhoeven, L., Elbro, C., & Reitsma, P. (Eds.), Precursors of functional literacy (pp. 229–245). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1993). Escala de Inteligencia de Wechsler para Niños-Revisada. [Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised] . Madrid, Spain: TEA Ediciones.Google Scholar
Ziegler, J. C., & Goswami, U. (2005). Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia and skilled reading across languages: A psycholinguistic grain size theory. Psychological Bullettin, 131, 3–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.131.1.3 Google Scholar
Ziegler, J. C., Perry, C., Jacobs, A. M., & Braun, M. (2001). Identical words are read differently in different languages. Psychological Science, 12, 379–384. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00370 Google Scholar
Zoccolotti, P., De Luca, M., Di Pace, E., Gasperini, F., Judica, A., & Spinelli, D. (2005). Word length effect in early reading and in developmental dyslexia. Brain and Language, 93, 369–373. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2004.10.010 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zoccolotti, P., De Luca, M., Di Filippo, G., Judica, A., & Martelli, M. (2009). Reading development in an orthographically regular language: Effects of length, frequency, lexicality and global processing ability. Reading and Writing, 22, 1053–1079. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-008-9144-8 CrossRefGoogle Scholar