Abstract
In English and some other languages, spelling problems that arise at a phonological level can sometimes be solved through consideration of morphology. For example, children could infer that tuned should contain ann and thatfighting should contain a t because their stems include these letters. Children could thus avoid misspellings that might otherwise occur, such as “tudrd and “fiding.” We used a spelling-level match design to examine the extent to which children with dyslexia and younger typical children use morphology in this way. Both groups of children benefited from morphology to some extent, but not as much as they could have given their knowledge of the stems. Our results suggest that the spellings produced by older children with dyslexia are similar to those of younger normal children in their morphological characteristics, as well as in other ways.
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This research was supported by Grant 12-FY00-51 from the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, Grant BCS-0130763 from the National Science Foundation, and Grant 227563 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Note—This article was accepted by the previous editorial team, when Colin M. MacLeod was Editor.
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Bourassa, D.C., Treiman, R. & Kessler, B. Use of morphology in spelling by children with dyslexia and typically developing children. Memory & Cognition 34, 703–714 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193589
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193589