The authors investigated past-tense morphology problems in children with dyslexia compared to those classically observed in children with oral language impairment (LI). Children were tested on a past-tense elicitation task involving regulars (look-looked), irregulars (take-took), and nonwords (murn-murned). Phonological skills were also assessed, using tests of nonsense word reading and phoneme elision. Analyses focused on whether children with dyslexia and LI showed overlapping patterns of morphological and phonological difficulties compared to controls with typical reading and language levels. Both the groups with LI and dyslexia had difficulty generating past tenses overall, although the deficit was less pronounced in dyslexia. Both groups also showed similar problems with phonological processing. The results have important implications for the theory that both language and reading problems involve oral language processing deficits. Specifically, our data support the theory that the phonological deficits observed in both dyslexia and LI are related to deficits in morphological processing. However, some important differences between dyslexia and LI are also discussed.
American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Washington, DC: Author.
2.
BirdJ.BishopD. V. M.FreemanN. H. (1995). Phonological awareness and literacy development in children with expressive phonological impairments. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 38, 446–462.
3.
BishopD. (1989). Test of Reception of Grammar. Manchester, UK: Department of Psychology, University of Manchester.
4.
BishopD. V. M.BishopS. J.BrightP.JamesC.DelaneyT.TallalP. (1999). Different origin of auditory and phonological processing problems in children with language impairment: Evidence from a twin study. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 42, 155–168.
5.
BishopD. V. M.SnowlingM. J. (2004). Developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment: Same or different?Psychological bulletin, 130(6), 858–886.
6.
BradleyL.BryantP. E. (1983). Categorizing sounds and learning to read—A causal connection. Nature, 301(3), 419–421.
7.
BruckM.TreimanR. (1990). Phonological awareness and spelling in normal children and dyslexics: The case of initial consonant clusters. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 50(1), 156–178.
8.
Conti-RamsdenG.BottingJ.FaragherB. (2001). Psycholinguistic markers for specific language impairment (SLI). Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 42(6), 741–748.
9.
CunninghamA. E.StanovichK. E. (1989). Assessing print exposure and orthographic processing skill in children: A quick measure of reading experience. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(4), 733–740.
10.
DunnL. M.DunnL. M. (1997). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Third Edition. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
11.
EhriL. C. (1987). Learning to read and spell words. Journal of Reading Behaviour, 19, 5–31.
12.
GathercoleS. E.BaddeleyA. D. (1990). Phonological memory deficits in language disordered children: Is there a causal connection?Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 336–360.
13.
GonnermanL. M.SeidenbergM. S.AndersenE. S. (2007). Graded semantic and phonological similarity effects in priming: Evidence for a distributed connectionist approach to morphology. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136, 323–345.
14.
GoulandrisN. K.SnowlingM. J.WalkerI. (2000). Is dyslexia a form of specific language impairment? A comparison of dyslexic and language impaired children as adolescents. Annals of Dyslexia, 50, 103–120.
15.
GriffithsY. M.SnowlingM. J. (2002). Predictors of exception word and nonword reading in dyslexic children. The severity hypothesis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(1), 34–43.
16.
HarmM. W.SeidenbergM. S. (2001). Are there orthographic impairments in phonological dyslexia?Cognitive Neuropsychology, 18(1), 71–92.
17.
HayesD. (1988). Speaking and reading. Distinct patterns of word choice. Journal of Memory and Language, 27(5), 572–585.
18.
JoanisseM. F. (2004). Specific language impairments in children: Phonology, semantics, and the English past-tense. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13(4), 156–160.
19.
JoanisseM. F.ManisF. R.KeatingP.SeidenbergM. S. (2000). Language deficits in dyslexic children: Speech perception, phonology, and morphology. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 71, 30–60.
20.
JoanisseM. F.SeidenbergM. S. (1998). Specific language impairment: A deficit in grammar or processing?Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2(7), 240–247.
21.
JoanisseM. F.SeidenbergM. S. (1999). Impairments in verb morphology following brain injury: A connectionist model. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 96, 7592–7597.
22.
KamhiA. G.CattsH. W. (1986). Toward an understanding of developmental language and reading disorders. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 51, 337–347.
23.
KielarA.JoanisseM. F.HareM. L. (2008). Priming English past-tense verbs: Rules or statistics?Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 327–346.
24.
MarchmanV. A.WulfeckB.Ellis WeismerE. (1999). Morphological productivity in children with normal language and SLI. A study of the English past-tense. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 42, 206–219.
25.
MontgomeryJ. W. (1995). Sentence comprehension in children with specific language impairment: The role of phonological working memory. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 38, 187–199.
26.
MoraisJ.CaryL.AlgeriaJ.BertelsonP. (1979). Does awareness of speech as a sequence of phones arise spontaneously?Cognition, 7, 323–331.
27.
NorburyC. F.BishopD. V. M.BriscoeJ. (2001). Production of English finite verb morphology: A comparison of SLI and mild-moderate hearing impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44, 165–178.
28.
OettingJ. B.HorohovJ. E. (1997). Past-tense marking by children with and without specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40(1), 62–74.
29.
PerfettiC. A.BeckI.BellL. C.HughesC. (1987). Phonemic knowledge and learning to read are reciprocal: A longitudinal study of first grade children. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 33(3), 283–319.
30.
PinkerS.UllmanM. T. (2002). The past and future of past tense. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(11), 456–463.
31.
RackJ. P.SnowlingM. J.OlsonR. K. (1992). The nonword reading deficit in developmental dyslexia. A review. Reading Research Quarterly, 27(1), 28–53.
32.
RiceM. L.WexlerK.CleaveP. L. (1995). Specific Language Impairment as a period of extended optional infinitive. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 38, 850–863.
33.
RobertsonE. K.JoanisseM. F. (2010). Spoken sentence comprehension in children with dyslexia and language impairment: The roles of syntax and working memory. Applied Psycholinguistics, 31, 141–165.
34.
RobertsonE. K.JoanisseM. F.DesrochesA. S.NgS. (2009). Categorical speech perception deficits distinguish language and reading impairments in children. Developmental Science, 12, 753–767.
35.
RumelhartD.McClellandJ. L. (1986). On learning the past tenses of English verbs. In RumelhartD.McClellandJ. L. (Eds.), Parallel distributed processing (Vol. 2, pp. 216–271). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
36.
SeidenbergM. S.GonnermanL. M. (2000). Explaining derivational morphology as the convergence of codes. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 353–361.
37.
ShankweilerD.CrainS.KatzL.FowlerA. E.LibermanA. M.BradyS. A.. . .ShaywitzB. A. (1995). Cognitive profiles of reading-disabled children: Comparison of language skills in phonology, morphology, and syntax. Psychological Science, 6(3), 149–156.
38.
SperlingA. J.LuZ-L.ManisF. R.SeidenbergM. S. (2005). Deficits in perceptual noise exclusion in developmental dyslexia. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 862–863.
39.
SnowlingM. J. (2000). Dyslexia (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
40.
UllmanM. T.GopnikM. (1999). Inflectional morphology in a family with inherited specific language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20(1), 51–117.
41.
Van der LelyH.UllmanM. T. (2001). Past tense morphology in specifically language impaired and normally developing children. Language and Cognitive Processes, 16(2), 177–217.
42.
Vargha-KhademF.WatkinsK.AlcockK.FletcherP.PassinghamR. (1995). Praxic and nonverbal cognitive deficits in a large family with genetically transmitted speech and language disorder. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 92, 930–933.
43.
VogelS. A. (1977). Morphological ability in normal and dyslexic children. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 10(1), 35–43.
44.
WagnerR. K.TorgesenJ. K. (1987). The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. Psychological Bulletin, 101(2), 192–212.
45.
WagnerR. K.TorgesenJ. K.RashotteC. A. (1994). Development of reading-related phonological processing abilities: New evidence of bi-directional causality from a latent variable longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 30(1), 73–87.
46.
WagnerR. K.TorgesenJ. K.RashotteC. A. (1999). Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed Inc.
47.
WechslerD. A. (1992). Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–III. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
48.
WechslerD. A. (2003). Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–IV. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
49.
WerkerJ. F.TeesR. C. (1987). Speech perception in severely disabled and average reading children. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 41(1), 48–61.
50.
WoodcockR. W. (1989). Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests–Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
51.
ZenoS. M.IvensS. H.MillardR. T.DuvvuriR. (1995). The educator’s word frequency guide. Brewster, NY: TASA.
