How language affects children’s use of derivational morphology in visual word and pseudoword processing:evidence from a cross-language study

Developing readers have been shown to rely on morphemes in visual word recognition across several naming, lexical decision and priming experiments. However, the impact of morphology in reading is not consistent across studies with differing results emerging not only between but also within writing systems. Here, we report a cross-language experiment involving the English and French languages, which aims to compare directly the impact of morphology in word recognition in the two languages. Monolingual French-speaking and English-speaking children matched for grade level (Part 1) and for age (Part 2) participated in the study. Two lexical decision tasks (one in French, one in English) featured words and pseudowords with exactly the same structure in each language. The presence of a root (R+) and a suffix ending (S+) was manipulated orthogonally, leading to four possible combinations in words (R+S+: e.g. postal; R+S-: e.g. turnip; R-S+: e.g. rascal; and R-S-: e.g. bishop) and in pseudowords (R+S+: e.g. pondal; R+S-: e.g. curlip; R-S+: e.g. vosnal; and R-S-: e.g. hethop). Results indicate that the presence of morphemes facilitates children’s recognition of words and impedes their ability to reject pseudowords in both languages. Nevertheless, effects extend across accuracy and latencies in French but are restricted to accuracy in English, suggesting a higher degree of morphological processing efficiency in French. We argue that the inconsistencies found between languages emphasise the need for developmental models of word recognition to integrate a morpheme level whose elaboration is tuned by the productivity and transparency of the derivational system

Lecture et dyslexies du développement: Rôle des unités morphémiques dans la reconnaissance des mots écrits

We conducted six studies to examine the role of morphology in visual word recognition in normal developing readers and in adolescents with developmental dyslexia. The first study indicates that morphemes embedded in words and in pseudowords are taken into account in a lexical decision task as soon as grade 2, even in dyslexic readers (study 2). The priming paradigm enabled to dissociate between form and meaning properties of morphemes (e.g. fillette – fille vs. baguette – bague, an example in English would be singer – sing vs. corner - corn) and to examine their influence according to the temporal discourse of visual word recognition (60 ms, 250 ms et 800 ms). Morphological processing is driven by the orthographic properties of morphemes at the earliest steps of word recognition from grade 3 to grade 7, suggesting a morpho- orthographic segmentation. The semantic properties of morphemes are activated later in the time course, namely at 250 ms in grades 5 and 7, and at 800 ms in grades 3 and 4 (study 3). Morpho-orthographic segmentation is influenced by formal transparency of morphemes from grade 3 to grade 5, but is more flexible in grade 7 (study 5). Dyslexic readers are only sensitive to the semantic properties of morphemes, whatever the prime duration (study 4). Accordingly, they are not influenced by formal transparency of morphemes in visual word recognition (study 6).Nous avons examiné à travers six études le rôle de la morphologie dans la reconnaissance des mots écrits, chez des enfants au développement normal des habiletés de lecture et chez des adolescents dyslexiques. L’étude 1 indique que les lecteurs sont influencés dès le CE1 par la présence d’unités morphémiques dans lesmots et dans les pseudomots pour réaliser une tâche de décision lexicale. Cet effet s’observe également chez les dyslexiques dans l’étude 2. Le paradigme d’amorçage a ensuite permis de dissocier les effets liés au partage formel et sémantique inhérent à la morphologie (e.g. fillette – fille vs. baguette – bague), et d’en examiner l’impact en fonction du décours temporel de la reconnaissance des mots écrits (60 ms, 250 ms et800 ms). Les normo-lecteurs (étude 3) ne sont influencés que par les propriétés orthographiques des morphèmes lors des premières étapes de la reconnaissance. Les représentations associées aux propriétés sémantiques des morphèmes sont progressivement activées, à 250 ms chez les lecteurs les plus avancés (CM2 et 5ème) et à 800 ms chez les lecteurs plus jeunes (CE2 et CM1). En revanche, les dyslexiques ne sont influencés que par les propriétés sémantiques des morphèmes, quel que soit le temps de présentation de l’amorce (étude 4). L’étude 5 indique que les traitements morpho-orthographiques qui caractérisent les premières étapes de la reconnaissance chez les normo-lecteurs nécessitent un appariement lettre à lettre entre l’amorce et la cible du CE2 au CM2, mais sont plus flexibles chez les lecteurs plus avancés (5ème). Enfin, la transparence formelle n’influence pas le traitement de la structure morphologique chez les dyslexiques (étude 6)

Phonological disorders in children with primary language disorders

The aim of this article is to describe the nature of phonological disorders among children with primary language disorders. Because phonological disorders can have different origins, it is important for clinicians to be able to determine the origin of difficulties, in order to adapt treatment accordingly. Following an overview of the development of phonological skills, the psycholinguistic model of Steakhouse and Wells (1997) will be explained. This model contribues to a precise examination of the nature of the difficulties experienced by children with primary language disorders. Finally, two studies that examined speech abilities in children with primary language disorders will be presented to illustrate the importance of an in-depth evaluation of phonological abilities for assessment and treatment planning.L’objectif de cet article est de présenter la nature des troubles phonologiques qui se manifestent dans les troubles du langage oral. Les troubles phonologiques peuvent avoir différentes origines, et il est important pour le clinicien de savoir déterminer l’origine des difficultés afin de proposer une prise en charge adaptée. Après avoir présenté les différentes étapes du développement phonologique, le modèle de Stackhouse et Wells (1997) sera expliqué. Ce dernier permet d’examiner avec précision la nature des difficultés rencontrées par les enfants avec trouble du langage oral. Enfin, deux études menées chez les enfants avec trouble spécifique du langage oral viendront illustrer l’importance d’une évaluation fine et précise des habiletés phonologiques dans le cadre du diagnostic et de la prise en charge

Sensibilité des enfants dysphasiques aux probabilités phonotactiques durant l'accès lexical

The procedural deficit hypothesis (Ullman & Pierpont, 2005) has been proposed to account for the combination of linguistic and nonlinguistic deficits observed in specific language impairment (SLI). According to this proposal, SLI results from a deficit in procedural memory that prevents children from developing sensitivity to probabilistic sequences. We tested the ability of children with SLI to rely on a specific type of probabilities characterizing sequences that occur in a given language: phonotactic probabilities. Twenty French-speaking children with SLI (M = 10;1), 20 typically developing children matched for chronological age (M = 10;0) and 20 typically developing children matched for receptive vocabulary (M = 7;4) performed an auditory lexical decision task. Pseudoword stimuli were built with combinations of either frequently associated phonemes (high phonotactic probability) or infrequently associated phonemes (low phonotactic probability). Phonotactic probabilities had a significant impact on the accuracy and speed of pseudoword rejection in children with SLI, but not in the two control groups. SLI children's greater reliance on phonotactic probabilities relative to typically developing children appears to contradict the PD hypothesis. Phonotactic probabilities may help them to partially overcome their difficulties in accessing the phonological lexicon during spoken word recognition

Orthographic and morphemic effects in the written syllable counting task

PUBLISHED STUDY. According to a recent hypothesis, the organization of letters into groups of successive consonants and vowels (i.e., CV pattern) constrains the orthographic structure of words. Here, we examined to what extent the morphological structure of words modifies the influence of the CV pattern in a syllable counting task. Participants were presented with written words matched for the number of syllables and comprising either one vowel cluster less than the number of syllables (hiatus words, e.g., crØation) or the same number of vowel clusters (control words, e.g., crØpiter). Participants were slower and less accurate for hiatus than control stimuli, be it words (Experiments 1, 3) or pseudowords (Experiment 2). More importantly, this hiatus effect was present even when the stimuli had a morphemic boundary falling within the hiatus (e.g., rØ-agir). The results suggest that the CV pattern of items more strongly influences performance in the syllable counting task than the morphological structure

Morphological processing in beginning readers and developmental dyslexic children

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a b s t r a c t Three visual priming experiments using three different prime durations (60 ms in Experiment 1, 250 ms in Experiment 2, and 800 ms in Experiment 3) were conducted to examine which properties of morphemes (form and/or meaning) drive developing readers' processing of written morphology. French third, fifth, and seventh graders and adults (the latter as a control group) performed lexical decision tasks in which targets were preceded by morphological (e.g., tablett

Morphological processing in written word production is based on orthography rather than semantics

International audienceWritten word production is influenced by central and peripheral processes. Evidence suggests that the activation of morphological units in the lexicon influences the dynamics of handwriting. In this study, we designed two priming experiments to examine the representation level of morphological information in the lexicon during written word production in the French language. In both experiments, target words (e.g., chanteur, "singer") were primed by a derived (e.g., chanter, "to sing"), a pseudo-derived (e.g., chantier, "work site"), or an unrelated (e.g., baleine, "whale") prime. We used the pseudo-derivation condition to disentangle two distinct levels of representation: the sublexical (also known as morpho-orthographic) and the supralexical (morpho-semantic). In Experiment 1 (learning-recall task), we measured the writing latency and writing duration of the target words. In Experiment 2 (word pair copying task), we measured the inter-word duration and writing duration of the target words. We observed morphological priming effects in both experiments: The processing of a derived prime influenced target writing compared to an unrelated prime, but the effect was observed on latencies in Experiment 1 and on target writing duration in Experiment 2. We found similar patterns of priming in the derived and pseudo-derived conditions in both experiments. The findings revealed that morphemes are processed at the morpho-orthographic representation level in written word production. Morphemes serve as grouping units during handwriting, a process that operates independently of their meaning