Characteristics of Word Reading according to Word Condition in Normal Adults

Purpose Morphological awareness is the ability to consciously manipulate the smallest units of meaning in language. Morphological awareness contributes to success with literacy skills for children with typical language and those with language impairment. However, little research has focused on the morphological awareness skills of children with speech sound disorders (SSD), who may be at risk for literacy impairments. No researcher has examined the morphological awareness skills of children with SSD and compared their skills to children with typical speech using tasks representing a comprehensive definition of morphological awareness, which was the main purpose of this study. Method Thirty second- and third-grade students with SSD and 30 with typical speech skills, matched on age and receptive vocabulary, completed four morphological awareness tasks and measures of receptive vocabulary, real-word reading, pseudoword reading, and word-level spelling. Results Results indicated there was no difference between the morphological awareness skills of students with and without SSD. Although morphological awareness was moderately to strongly related to the students' literacy skills, performance on the morphological awareness tasks contributed little to no additional variance to the children's real-word reading and spelling skills beyond what was accounted for by pseudoword reading. Conclusions Findings suggest that early elementary-age students with SSD may not present with concomitant morphological awareness difficulties and that the morphological awareness skills of these students may not play a unique role in their word-level literacy skills. Limitations and suggestions for future research on the morphological awareness skills of children with SSD are discussed.

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The Relation Between Linguistic Awareness Skills and Spelling in Adults: A Comparison Among Scoring Procedures

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2020_jslhr-19-00120 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 63 (4) ◽

pp. 1240-1253

Author(s):

Victoria S. Henbest ◽

Lisa Fitton ◽

Krystal L. Werfel ◽

Kenn Apel

Keyword(s):

Phonemic Awareness ◽

Concurrent Validity ◽

Word Reading ◽

Continuous Measure ◽

Scoring Methods ◽

Syntactic Awareness ◽

Scoring Method ◽

Spelling Performance ◽

Linguistic Awareness ◽

Average Readers

Purpose Spelling is a skill that relies on an individual's linguistic awareness, the ability to overtly manipulate language. The ability to accurately spell is important for academic and career success into adulthood. The spelling skills of adults have received some attention in the literature, but there is limited information regarding which approach for analyzing adults' spelling is optimal for guiding instruction or intervention for those who struggle. Thus, we aimed to examine the concurrent validity of four different scoring methods for measuring adults' spellings (a dichotomous scoring method and three continuous methods) and to determine whether adults' linguistic awareness skills differentially predict spelling outcomes based on the scoring method employed. Method Sixty undergraduate college students who were determined to be average readers as measured by a word reading and contextual word reading task were administered a spelling task as well as morphological, orthographic, phonemic, and syntactic awareness tasks. Results All four scoring methods were highly correlated suggesting high concurrent validity among the measures. Two linguistic awareness skills, morphological awareness and syntactic awareness, predicted spelling performance on both the dichotomous and continuous scoring methods. Contrastively, phonemic awareness and orthographic awareness predicted spelling performance only when spelling was scored using a continuous measure error analysis. Conclusions The results of this study confirm that multiple linguistic awareness skills are important for spelling in adults who are average readers. The results also highlight the need for using continuous measures of spelling when planning intervention or instruction, particularly in the areas of orthographic and phonemic awareness.

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Factors Influencing Electrophysiologic Responsivity in Normal Adults

Journal of Speech and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jshr.0804.323 ◽

1965 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 323-347

Author(s):

Robert Goldstein ◽

Benjamin RosenblÜt

Keyword(s):

Conditioned Stimulus ◽

White Light ◽

Pure Tone ◽

Alpha Rhythm ◽

White Women ◽

White Men ◽

Inverse Relation ◽

Factors Influencing ◽

Electrodermal Responses ◽

Normal Adults

Electrodermal and electroencephalic responsivity to sound and to light was studied in 96 normal-hearing adults in three separate sessions. The subjects were subdivided into equal groups of white men, white women, colored men, and colored women. A 1 000 cps pure tone was the conditioned stimulus in two sessions and white light was used in a third session. Heat was the unconditioned stimulus in all sessions. Previously, an inverse relation had been found in white men between the prominence of alpha rhythm in the EEG and the ease with which electrodermal responses could be elicited. This relation did not hold true for white women. The main purpose of the present study was to answer the following questions: (1) are the previous findings on white subjects applicable to colored subjects? (2) are subjects who are most (or least) responsive electrophysiologically on one day equally responsive (or unresponsive) on another day? and (3) are subjects who are most (or least) responsive to sound equally responsive (or unresponsive) to light? In general, each question was answered affirmatively. Other factors influencing responsivity were also studied.

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Reading Longer Words: Insights Into Multisyllabic Word Reading

Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups ◽

10.1044/persp2.sig1.86 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 86-94 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Lindsay Heggie ◽

Lesly Wade-Woolley

Keyword(s):

Systematic Approach ◽

Word Reading ◽

Explicit Instruction ◽

Working Memory Capacity ◽

Reading Difficulties ◽

Instructional Programs ◽

Morphological Knowledge ◽

Morphological Complexity ◽

Reading Accuracy ◽

Grade 3

Students with persistent reading difficulties are often especially challenged by multisyllabic words; they tend to have neither a systematic approach for reading these words nor the confidence to persevere (Archer, Gleason, & Vachon, 2003; Carlisle & Katz, 2006; Moats, 1998). This challenge is magnified by the fact that the vast majority of English words are multisyllabic and constitute an increasingly large proportion of the words in elementary school texts beginning as early as grade 3 (Hiebert, Martin, & Menon, 2005; Kerns et al., 2016). Multisyllabic words are more difficult to read simply because they are long, posing challenges for working memory capacity. In addition, syllable boundaries, word stress, vowel pronunciation ambiguities, less predictable grapheme-phoneme correspondences, and morphological complexity all contribute to long words' difficulty. Research suggests that explicit instruction in both syllabification and morphological knowledge improve poor readers' multisyllabic word reading accuracy; several examples of instructional programs involving one or both of these elements are provided.

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