How Morphology, Context, Vocabulary and Reading Shape Lexical Inference in Typical and Dyslexic Readers
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22044638 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ifigeneia Dosi (0000-0003-4911-2049, Democritus University of Thrace, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 1266 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-23 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Education Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2227-7102 • E-ISSN: 2227-7102 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/educsci15101266 |
| OpenAlex | W4414438934 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 36 |
Children’s ability to infer meanings of unfamiliar words during reading is thought to rely on the interplay between decoding, morphological awareness, contextual support, and vocabulary knowledge, but it remains unclear how these sources operate in typically developing (TD) readers compared to those with developmental dyslexia (DD). This study examined whether morphological cues (suffixes) or/and contextual information facilitate meaning inference and which variables predict performance. Sixty children (30 TD, 30 DD; aged 9–12) completed a battery of tasks assessing pseudoword decoding, expressive vocabulary (breadth) synonyms, antonyms (depth), morphological awareness (deriving and decomposing words), and reading comprehension. The main inference task consisted of 20 short stories in which pseudowords replaced target words; in half the stories, pseudowords included derivational suffixes, while in the other half no such clues were available. Results showed that TD children performed significantly better than DD peers across all tasks. Regression analyses revealed that vocabulary depth and morphological awareness predicted inferencing in both groups, but decoding was uniquely predictive for DD children and reading comprehension only for TD children. These findings suggest that while lexical inference in both groups appears to draw on vocabulary and morphology, TD children may additionally integrate higher-order comprehension, whereas DD children seem to remain more influenced by decoding and partial lexical cues
Comprehension · Dyslexia · Inference · Pseudoword · Reading comprehension · Vocabulary · Vocabulary development · Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills · Reading and Literacy Development · Second Language Acquisition and Learning
Individual Differences in the Inference of Word Meanings From Context
Awareness of the structure and meaning of morphologically complex words
The Simple View of Reading
Morphological Awareness and Learning to Read
Word Knowledge in a Theory of Reading Comprehension
The Precursors of Reading Ability in Young Readers
Children’s morphological awareness and reading ability
Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1
Are Adolescents with a Wider Vocabulary Faster at Inference Making During Reading? Evidence from Self-Paced Reading
Vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension account for SES-differences in how school-aged children infer word meanings from sentences
Contribution of morphological awareness to reading fluency of children with and without dyslexia
Morphological processing influences on dyslexia in Greek-speaking children
The neurocognitive basis of morphological processing in typical and impaired readers
Morphological awareness in developmental dyslexia
What's meaning got to do with it
Contributions of morphology beyond phonology to literacy outcomes of upper elementary and middle-school students
The Role of Cognitive Abilities in the Development of Definitions by Children with and Without Developmental Language Disorder
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |