TY - JOUR
T1 - Spelling Performance and Semantic Understanding of Compound Words by Greek Students With Learning Disabilities
AU - Tsesmeli, Styliani N.
AU - Koutselaki, Despoina
PY - 2013/5
Y1 - 2013/5
N2 - The study aimed to investigate the spelling performance and the semantic understanding of compound words by 103 Greek primary school children (first through sixth grade). The experimental group comprised of 25 children with spelling difficulties and compared with a control group of 78 children of typical development. Children were asked to spell and define 20 concrete and abstract compounds. They were also asked to spell 20 different compounds after providing their definitions in terms of their morphological constituents. Main results indicated that concrete compounds were spelled and defined better than abstract ones, but the experimental group performed significantly lower than the control group on both word types. Children with spelling disabilities were able to use less etymological information in defining compound words than their typical classmates, suggesting that they understand less the internal structure of morphologically complex words. These results are compatible with the experimental literature and are discussed in terms of the morphophonemic nature of Greek language as a transparent orthography with a rich morphology.
AB - The study aimed to investigate the spelling performance and the semantic understanding of compound words by 103 Greek primary school children (first through sixth grade). The experimental group comprised of 25 children with spelling difficulties and compared with a control group of 78 children of typical development. Children were asked to spell and define 20 concrete and abstract compounds. They were also asked to spell 20 different compounds after providing their definitions in terms of their morphological constituents. Main results indicated that concrete compounds were spelled and defined better than abstract ones, but the experimental group performed significantly lower than the control group on both word types. Children with spelling disabilities were able to use less etymological information in defining compound words than their typical classmates, suggesting that they understand less the internal structure of morphologically complex words. These results are compatible with the experimental literature and are discussed in terms of the morphophonemic nature of Greek language as a transparent orthography with a rich morphology.
KW - learning disabilities
KW - morphology
KW - semantics
KW - spelling
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84876102845&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0022219412449442
DO - 10.1177/0022219412449442
M3 - Article
C2 - 22711665
AN - SCOPUS:84876102845
SN - 0022-2194
VL - 46
SP - 241
EP - 251
JO - Journal of Learning Disabilities
JF - Journal of Learning Disabilities
IS - 3
ER -