Clinical Considerations From Researcher-Created Morphological Awareness Assessments

Abstract

Purpose: Morphological awareness develops throughout formal schooling and is positively related to later reading abilities. However, there are limited standardized measures available for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to use when assessing morphological awareness in clinical practice. The purpose of this tutorial is to guide clinicians in choosing between researcher-created measures of morphological awareness to use with their school-aged students. Method: We first summarize previous morphological awareness assessment research and outline important clinical considerations when choosing a morphological awareness assessment for students in early elementary grades and beyond. Second, we highlight item characteristics regarding morpheme type, frequency, shift transparency, and imageability for students in early elementary versus later grades. Third, we discuss the type of tasks (i.e., production, decomposition, and judgment) and administration modes (i.e., oral or written and static or dynamic) available to clinicians assessing the morphological awareness skills of school-aged students. Throughout the tutorial, we reference a hypothetical case study to illustrate how SLPs might apply these suggestions and link morphological awareness assessment to treatment recommendations. Conclusions: This tutorial highlights the importance of including morphological awareness assessments in clinical practice to support oral and written language development. We provide practical guidelines to help SLPs evaluate and choose appropriate morphological awareness assessments for their school-aged students as part of their comprehensive language evaluations and to support intervention planning. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24545470