Abstract
Children with phonological impairment (PI) are at increased risk for reading and spelling difficulties. To date, research has focused primarily on the phonological awareness abilities of children with PI as means of examining factors that impact their literacy development. However, research in the area of morphological awareness indicates that it is an essential skill, beyond phonological awareness, necessary for the successful acquisition of reading and spelling. This study investigated the morphological awareness abilities of children with PI as little is known about their morphological awareness skills. By examining the morphological awareness of children with PI, a better understanding of factors that might place these students at risk for reading and spelling difficulties can be developed. Eighty-eight first grade students, 44 students with PI, or a history of PI, and 44 students with typical speech and language skills (TD), were recruited as participants. All participants completed an assessment battery designed to measure expressive phonology, morphological awareness, phonological awareness, letter-name knowledge, receptive vocabulary, reading, and spelling. Descriptive quantitative research methods were used to answer the study’s research questions. Specifically, independent samples t-tests were used to determine whether there were differences in morphological awareness abilities between students with PI and students with TD. Regression analyses were used to determine whether the morphological awareness of children with PI and children with typical development account for significant independent variance on measures of reading and spelling. Results from the t-tests suggested significant differences between children with TD and children with PI on all measures of morphological awareness. Regression analyses suggested morphological awareness predicted significant unique variance on the spelling measure for both groups as well as for reading for children with TD; morphological awareness did not significantly predict additional variance on the reading measure for children with PI. Results indicate that children with PI are significantly outperformed by typically developing peers on measures of morphological awareness. This gap in performance may help explain, to some extent, the differences in reading abilities between children with PI and children with TD.
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