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Simple morphological spelling rules are not always used: Individual differences in children and adults
Citation
Kemp, N and Mitchell, P and Bryant, P, Simple morphological spelling rules are not always used: Individual differences in children and adults, Applied Psycholinguistics, 38, (5) pp. 1071-1094. ISSN 0142-7164 (2017) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2017 Cambridge University Press
DOI: doi:10.1017/S0142716417000042
Abstract
The English spelling system has a variety of rules and exceptions, but both theoretical and empirical
accounts have generally concluded that by about age 9 or 10, children master the morphological rule
that regular plural nouns (e.g., socks) and third-person singular present verbs (e.g., lacks) are spelled
with the inflectional ending –s. In three experiments, however, we found that when forced to rely
exclusively on morphological cues, only a minority of primary school children, secondary school
children, and even adults performed significantly above chance at choosing the appropriate spelling for
novel words presented as inflected or uninflected nouns and verbs. Further, significantly above-chance
performance was more common in adults who had attended school until age 18, compared to age
16. We conclude that many spellers, especially those who do not go on to tertiary education, never
learn some simple morphological spelling rules, and instead rely on a store of individual word-specific
spellings.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
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Keywords: | spelling, morphology, children, adults, plurals |
Research Division: | Psychology and Cognitive Sciences |
Research Group: | Psychology |
Research Field: | Educational Psychology |
Objective Division: | Expanding Knowledge |
Objective Group: | Expanding Knowledge |
Objective Field: | Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences |
Author: | Kemp, N (Associate Professor Nenagh Kemp) |
ID Code: | 117900 |
Year Published: | 2017 |
Deposited By: | Psychology |
Deposited On: | 2017-06-29 |
Last Modified: | 2018-01-09 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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