Morphological Development in Normal and Clinical Populations

Abstract

Purpose The goal of this review article is to summarize what is currently known about morphological processing in both normal and clinical populations in order to present unexplored opportunities to focus remediation efforts for children with language difficulties. Method Existing evidence was collected via a computerized database search, and the data were summarized in a narrative review. Conclusions Strong, precise lexical representations are key to skilled reading and writing performance, and the available evidence suggests that, in order to become efficient readers, English-speaking children must acquire a rapid and flexible word recognition system that can accommodate the quasiregular morpho-orthographic to semantic mappings that characterize English. Individual differences may affect how easily children are able to discover these regularities on the basis of linguistic experience and make use of sublexical morphemic constituents in visual word recognition.