Brain bases of morphological processing in young children

Abstract

How does the developing brain support the transition from spoken language to print? Two spoken language abilities form the initial base of child literacy across languages: knowledge of language sounds (phonology) and knowledge of the smallest units that carry meaning (morphology). While phonology has received much attention from the field, the brain mechanisms that support morphological competence for learning to read remain largely unknown. In the present study, young English-speaking children completed an auditory morphological awareness task behaviorally (n = 69, ages 6-12) and in fMRI (n = 16). The data revealed two findings: First, children with better morphological abilities showed greater activation in left temporoparietal regions previously thought to be important for supporting phonological reading skills, suggesting that this region supports multiple language abilities for successful reading acquisition. Second, children showed activation in left frontal regions previously found active in young Chinese readers, suggesting morphological processes for reading acquisition might be similar across languages. These findings offer new insights for developing a comprehensive model of how spoken language abilities support children's reading acquisition across languages.

Keywords: auditory; children; fMRI; language; literacy; morphemes; reading.

Figure 1

Brain activation for (a) Control > Rest, FDR corrected for multiple comparisons at P < 0.05, height threshold P < 0.001, ET > 35 voxels. (b) Morphology > Control contrasts, FDR corrected for multiple comparisons at P < 0.05, height threshold P < 0.005, ET > 30 voxels. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

Figure 2

Whole‐brain correlations revealed greater activation in left temporo‐parietal regions in children with better morphological competence (Morphology > Control contrast; FDR corrected for multiple comparisons at P < 0.05, height threshold P < 0.005, ET > 15 voxels). [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

Figure 3

(a) Figure showing location of ROI 8‐mm spheres. Following are ROI scatterplots for correlations between morphology scores to signal change in Morphology > Control contrast, (b) left MFG (Siok et al., 2004), and (c) left SMG (Hoeft et al., 2007). [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com.]