Morphological Awareness in Brazilian Learners with Developmental Dyslexia

Abstract

There is consistent empirical support that demonstrates the relationship between phonological deficits of developmental dyslexics and their reading difficulties. However, the morphological skills—which also play an important role in the development of alphabetic writing—are seldom investigated among children and adolescents with dyslexia. The focus of this study was to analyse reading patterns according to the dual route model and verify the performance of each subtype of dyslexic in tests of morphological awareness. Participants were nine students classified as surface or phonological dyslexics through their performance in an isolated words-reading task. Four tests were applied to the participants to assess their knowledge of derivational morphology, and two tests focused on their knowledge of inflectional morphology. The hypothesis that guided this research was that students with different reading patterns would also present different performances on morphological tests. This hypothesis was confirmed only for derivational morphology, in which a higher performance was observed among participants with phonological dyslexia. It is concluded that metamorphological skills may serve as facilitators of reading in students with developmental dyslexia, and a focus on the development of these skills is suggested as a strategy to promote the reading skills of these students.

Share and Cite:

Guimarães, S. , Cunha, J. , Medina, G. and Campos, A. (2015) Morphological Awareness in Brazilian Learners with Developmental Dyslexia. Creative Education, 6, 1145-1157. doi: 10.4236/ce.2015.611113.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1] Alexander, A. W., Andersen, H. G., Heilman, P. C., Voeller, K. K. S., & Torgesen, J. K. (1991). Phonological Awareness Training and Remediation of Analytic Decoding Deficits in a Group of Severe Dyslexics. Annals of Dyslexia, 41, 193-206.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02648086
[2] Arnback, E., & Elbro, C. (2000). The Effects of Morphological Awareness Training on the Reading and Spelling Skills of Young Dyslexics. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 44, 229-251.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00313830050154485
[3] Barbosa, V. do R. (2013). O papel da consciência morfológica no aperfeiçoamento da linguagem escrita. Tese de doutorado, Curitiba: Universidade Federal do Paraná.
[4] Blomert, L., & Willems, G. (2010). Is There a Causal Link from a Phonological Awareness Deficit to Reading Failure in Children at Familial Risk for Dyslexia? Dyslexia, 16, 300-317.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/dys.405
[5] Bourassa, D. C., & Treiman, R. (2008). Morphological Constancy in Spelling: A Comparison of Children with Dyslexia and Typically Developing Children. Dyslexia, 14, 155-169.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/dys.368
[6] Bourassa, D. C., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2006). Use of Morphology in Spelling by Children with Dyslexia and Typically Developing Children. Memory & Cognition, 34, 703-714.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03193589
[7] Bourassa, D., & Treiman, R. (2014). Spelling Development and Disability in English. In C. A. Stone, E. R. Silliman, B. J. Ehren, & G. P. Wallach (Eds.), Handbook of Language and Literacy: Development and Disorders (2nd ed., pp. 569-583). New York: Guilford.
[8] Bruck, M., & Treiman, R. (1990). Phonological Awareness and Spelling in Normal Children and Dyslexics: The Case of Initial Consonant Clusters. Journal of Experimental child Psychology, 50, 156-178.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0022-0965(90)90037-9
[9] Carlisle, J. (1987). The Use of Morphological Knowledge in Spelling Derived Forms by Learning-Disabled and Normal Students. Annals of Dyslexia, 37, 90-108.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02648061
[10] Carlisle, J. (1988). Knowledge of Derivational Morphology and Spelling Ability in Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth Graders. Applied Psycholinguistics, 9, 247-266.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716400007839
[11] Carlisle, J. (1995). Morphological Awareness and Early Reading Achievement. In L. Feldman (Ed.), Morphological Aspects of Language Processing (pp. 189-211). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
[12] Carlisle, J. (1996). An Exploratory Study of Morphological Errors in Children’s Written Stories. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 8, 61-72.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00423925
[13] Carlisle, J. (2000). Awareness of the Structure and Meaning of Morphologically Complex Words: Impact on Reading. Read-ing and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 12, 169-190.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1008131926604
[14] Casalis, S., Colé, P., & Sopo, D. (2004). Morphological Awareness in Developmental Dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 54, 114-138.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11881-004-0006-z
[15] Castles, A., & Coltheart, M. (1993). Varieties of Developmental Dyslexia. Cognition, 47, 149-180.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(93)90003-E
[16] Castles, A., & Coltheart, M. (2004). Is There a Causal Link from Phonological Awareness to Success in Learning to Read? Cognition, 91, 77-111.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(03)00164-1
[17] Coltheart, M. (1996). Phonological Dyslexia; Past and Future Issues. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 13, 749-762.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/026432996381791
[18] Coltheart, M. (2005). Modelling Reading: The Dual-Route Approach. In M. J., & C. Hulme (Eds.), The Science of Reading: A Handbook (pp. 6-23). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
[19] Coltheart, M., Masterson, J., Byng, S., Prior, M., & Riddoch, J. (1983). Surface Dyslexia. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 35, 469-495.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14640748308402483
[20] Correa, J. (2005). A avaliação da consciência morfossintática na criança. Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, 18, 91-97.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-79722005000100012
[21] Cunha, C., & Cintra, L. (2008). Nova gramática do português contemporaneo (5th ed.). Rio de Janeiro: Lexicon.
[22] Deacon, S., & Bryant, P. (2005). What Young Children Do and Do Not Know about the Spelling of Inflections and Derivations. Developmental Science, 8, 583-594.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00449.x
[23] Dehaene, S. (2012). Os neurônios da leitura. Porto Alegre: Penso.
[24] Elbro, C., & Arnbak, 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
[25] Ellis, A. W. (1995). Leitura, escrita e dislexia: Uma abordagem cognitiva (2th ed.). Porto Alegre: Artes Médicas.
[26] Ferrari Neto, J., & Sousa, L. B. (2012). O processamento da leitura na aquisição da morfologia derivacional em português brasileiro (PB) por disléxicos. Signo, 37, 273-298.
[27] Guimarães, S. R. K. (2004). Dislexias adquiridas como referência para a análise das dificuldades de aprendizagem da leitura. Educar em Revista, 23, 285-306.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0104-4060.343
[28] Guimarães, S. R. K. (2005). Influência da variação lingüística e da consciência morfossintática no desempenho em leitura e escrita. Interação em Psicologia, 9, 261-271.
[29] Joanisse, M. F., Manis, F. R., Keating, P., & Seidenberg, M. S. (2000). Language Deficits in Dyslexic Children: Speech Perception, Phonology, and Morphology. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 77, 30-60.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jecp.1999.2553
[30] Kovelman, I., Norton, E. S., Christodoulou, J. A., Gaab, N., Lieberman, D. A., Triantafyllou, C., Wolf, M., Whitfield-Gab-rieli, S., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2012). Brain Basis of Phonological Awareness for Spoken Language in Children and Its Dis-ruption in Dyslexia. Cerebral Cortex, 22, 754-764.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhr094
[31] Laroca, M. N. C. (2005). Manual de Morfologia do Português. Campinas: Pontes Editores.
[32] Manis, F. R., Seidenberg, M. S., Doi, L. M., McBride-Chang, C., & Petersen, A. (1996). On the Bases of Two Subtypes of Development Dyslexia. Cognition, 58, 157-195.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(95)00679-6
[33] Murrell, G. A., & Morton, J. (1974). Word Recognition and Morphemic Structure. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 102, 963-968.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0036551
[34] Paula, F. V. (2007). Conhecimento morfológico implícito e explícito na linguagem escrita. Tese de doutorado, São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo (Instituto de Psicologia).
[35] Peterson, R. L., Pennington, B. F., & Olson, R. K. (2013). Subtypes of Developmental Dyslexia: Testing the Predictions of the Dual-Route and Connectionist Frameworks. Cognition, 126, 20-38.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2012.08.007
[36] Rego, L. L. B., & Bryant, P. E. (1993). The Connection between Phonological, Syntactic and Semantic Skills and Children’s Reading and Spelling. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 8, 235-246.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF03174079
[37] Schulte-Körne, G., Deimel, W., Bartling, J., & Remschmidt, H. (1999). The Role of Phonological Awareness, Speech Perception, and Auditory Temporal Processing for Dyslexia. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 8, S28-S34.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/PL00010690
[38] Snowling, M. J. (1987). Dyslexia: A Cognitive Developmental Perspective. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
[39] Snowling, M. J. (1995). Phonological Processing and Developmental Dyslexia. Journal of Research in Reading, 18, 132-138.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9817.1995.tb00079.x
[40] Swan, D., & Goswami, U. (1997). Phonological Awareness Deficits in Developmental Dyslexia and the Phonological Representations Hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 66, 18-41.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jecp.1997.2375
[41] Temple, C. M., & Marshall, J. C. (1983). A Case Study of Developmental Phonological Dyslexia. British Journal of Psychology, 74, 517-533.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1983.tb01883.x
[42] Thomson, J. M., & Goswami, U. (2010). Learning Novel Phonological Representations in Developmental Dyslexia: Associations with Basic Auditory Processing of Rise Time and Phonological Awareness. Reading and Writing, 23, 453-473.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-009-9167-9
[43] Tsesmeli, S. N., & Seymour, P. H. (2006). Derivational Morphology and Spelling in Dyslexia. Reading and Writing, 19, 587-625.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-006-9011-4

Journals Menu
Follow SCIRP
Contact us
customer@scirp.org
WhatsApp +86 18163351462(WhatsApp)
Click here to send a message to me 1655362766
Paper Publishing WeChat

Copyright © 2023 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.