Morphological awareness and processing in children with phonological difficulties: Annual Meeting of the Society of the Scientific Studies of Reading

Purpose: This study examines the independence of phonological and morphological skills, and the impact phonological difficulties have on morphological awareness and processing during reading and spelling.Method: 27 children with dyslexia and 29 children with a history of otitis media (repeated ear infections causing fluctuating hearing levels), in addition to pairwise reading-age and chronological-age matched typically developing children, completed a battery of measures. Morphological awareness was measured through oral phonological and morphological awareness tasks. Phonological and morphological processing skills were examined in reading and spelling tasks.Results: Children with dyslexia performed below chronological age and at or below reading level on all measures of phonological and morphological awareness and processing. In contrast, children with OME had difficulties with particular aspects of phonological processing but showed age appropriate use of morphology.Conclusions: Difficulties with phonology don’t necessarily lead to difficulties in morphological awareness or processing. Hence, morphological skill can be independent from phonological skill. However, in dyslexia phonological and morphological skills are impaired, both in awareness and processing.