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Updated: May 31, 2026
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Advancing Dyslexia Assessment in Children Through Computerized Testing
Published on: August 16, 2024
Inflectional spelling deficits in developmental dyslexia.
Joanne Egan1, Marie-Josèphe Tainturier
1Psychology Service, Area Education Office, St Helena Centre, Sheffield Road, Chesterfield, Derbyshire S41 7LU, United Kingdom. Joanne.Egan@Derbyshire.gov.uk
Summary
Children with developmental dyslexia show specific deficits in past-tense spelling, impacting their use of morphological rules and orthographic memory. These findings suggest targeted interventions are needed for reading and spelling difficulties.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Linguistics
Background:
- Developmental dyslexia is characterized by persistent difficulties in reading and spelling.
- Past-tense formation involves morphological and orthographic processing, areas often affected in dyslexia.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate past-tense spelling deficits in developmental dyslexia.
- To examine the relationship between these deficits and phonological abilities, spoken morphological awareness, and orthographic memory.
Main Methods:
- Compared three groups of 9-year-old children: dyslexic, chronological age-matched, and reading/spelling age-matched.
- Administered tests of spelling inflected past-tense words, one-morpheme words, reading, spelling, phonological abilities, morphological awareness, and orthographic memory.
Main Results:
- Dyslexic children were impaired in past-tense spelling compared to chronological age-matched controls.
- Dyslexics showed specific difficulties with the '-ed' suffix and morphological relations, performing worse than reading/spelling age-matched controls.
- Orthographic memory was a significant predictor of past-tense spelling in dyslexics, unlike morphological awareness.
Conclusions:
- Developmental dyslexia is associated with specific past-tense spelling deficits.
- Impaired morphological awareness and orthographic memory contribute to these spelling difficulties.
- Findings inform teaching and remediation strategies for dyslexia, emphasizing orthographic memory support.
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