Morphological analysis in context versus isolation: use of a dynamic assessment task with school-age children

The current study investigated the ability of typically developing children in Grades 3 and 5 to use morphological analysis to determine the meanings of derived words with and without context clues. Also of interest was the relation between children's reading practices and their performance in determining the meanings of derived words.

Children provided definitions for 20 low-frequency derived words that were presented to them in isolation and in context. Responses were scored on a scale of 0 to 5 based on the children's performance on the Dynamic Assessment of Morphological Analysis--Modified (DATMA-M), which was created by the authors.

Results indicated a large variability in the children's performance on the DATMA-M. Children in Grade 5 achieved significantly higher scores as compared to children in Grade 3. Overall, children performed better in the context condition than the isolation condition. Significant correlations were found for reading frequency and DATMA-M scores. There was no significant difference in performance between the isolation and context conditions after controlling for reading frequency.

The findings of this study emphasize the need for continued research to enable speech-language pathologists to use assessments such as the DATMA-M to obtain insights into the morphological analytical skills of school-age children.