The absence of a word frequency effect along with the facilitating effect of root frequency indicated morphemic processing in all readers. The large word length effect on latencies confirmed laborious whole-word processing in children when reading low-frequency derived words. Generalized linear regression analyses on accuracy showed facilitating effects of word frequency and suffix frequency, for both groups. Furthermore, typically developing children had faster RTs on words with more frequent suffixes while children with dyslexia were faster when roots had a small family size. Root length predicted RTs of typically developing readers only, with faster RTs for longer roots, over and above the inhibitory effect of word length. Linear mixed-effects regression analyses on RTs showed the inhibitory effect of word length and the facilitating effect of root frequency for both children with and without dyslexia. Word reaction times (RTs) and mispronunciations were recorded.
Two groups of Italian 6th graders, with and without dyslexia, read aloud low-frequency derived words, with familiar roots and suffixes. By contrast, readers with dyslexia were not expected to be facilitated by longer roots because these roots might exceed dyslexics’ processing capacities. For typically developing readers, root activation was expected to be higher for longer than shorter roots because longer roots are more informative access units than shorter ones. The present study assessed whether root length modulates children’s morphological processing. 5Neuropsychology Unit, Fondazione Santa Lucia (IRCCS), Rome, ItalyĬhildren with dyslexia are extremely slow at reading long words but they are faster with stimuli composed of roots and derivational suffixes (e.g., CASSIERE, ‘cashier’) than stimuli not decomposable in morphemes (e.g., CAMMELLO, ‘camel’).4Dipartimento di Psicologia, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy.3Department of Psychology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy.2Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy.1Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione – Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Rome, Italy.Cristina Burani 1,2*, Stefania Marcolini 1, Daniela Traficante 3 and Pierluigi Zoccolotti 4,5
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