Different language skills are considered fundamental for successful reading and spelling acquisition. Extensive evidence has highlighted the central role of phonological awareness in early literacy experiences. However, many orthographic systems also require the contribution of morphological awareness. The goal of this study was to examine the morphological and phonological awareness skills of preschool children as longitudinal predictors of reading and spelling ability by the end of first grade, controlling for the effects of receptive and expressive vocabulary skills. At Time 1 preschool children from kindergartens in the Greek regions of Attika, Crete, Macedonia, and Thessaly were assessed on tasks tapping receptive and expressive vocabulary, phonological awareness (syllable and phoneme), and morphological awareness (inflectional and derivational). Tasks were administered through an Android application for mobile devices (tablets) featuring automatic application of ceiling rules. At Time 2 one year later the same children attending first grade were assessed on measures of word and pseudoword reading, text reading fluency, text reading comprehension, and spelling. Complete data from 104 children are available. Hierarchical linear regression and commonality analyses were conducted for each outcome variable. Reading accuracy for both words and pseudowords was predicted not only by phonological awareness, as expected, but also by morphological awareness, suggesting that understanding the functional role of word parts supports the developing phonology–orthography mappings. However, only phonological awareness predicted text reading fluency at this age. Longitudinal prediction of reading comprehension by both receptive vocabulary and morphological awareness was already evident at this age, as expected. Finally, spelling was predicted by preschool phonological awareness, as expected, as well as by morphological awareness, the contribution of which is expected to increase due to the spelling demands of Greek inflectional and derivational suffixes introduced at later grades.

This cross-sectional study examined the development of morphological awareness in Greek children 4–7 years old. A distinction was adopted between epilinguistic control, evidenced in judgment tasks and indicative of elementary levels of awareness, and metalinguistic awareness, evidenced in production tasks and indicative of full-blown conscious awareness. The morphological domains of inflectional and derivational morphology were specifically contrasted to determine whether they follow distinct developmental trajectories. Trial-level performance data from 236 children in four morphological awareness tasks as a function of age were modeled using generalized additive models. Significant performance increase with age was found for all four awareness tasks. The results further indicated that production of derivational morphemes was consistently more difficult than production of inflectional morphemes and judgment of derivational morphemes, whereas the differences between the two inflectional and between the two judgment tasks were not significant. This suggests that at these ages, epilinguistic control is similarly effective for the two morphological domains whereas full metalinguistic awareness of derivational morphology trails behind that of inflectional morphology, at least as measured by these specific tasks. The findings highlight the need for early tracking and finer distinctions within the domain of morphological awareness, to identify and potentially enhance the critical skills related to the development of vocabulary and reading comprehension.

The few reports on the language skills of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) offer conflicting evidence on whether they face significant challenges, and if so, whether these challenges are present in all aspects of language. Here, we investigated a sample of Greek-speaking children with ADHD ( n = 29) using a structural language (vocabulary, grammar) and a pragmatic language assessment. To ascertain the extent of strengths and weaknesses, we compared the performance of children with ADHD to typically developing (TD) peers ( n = 29) and also to children with developmental language disorder (DLD; n = 25), who face challenges particularly in structural language. As regards structural language, ADHD children performed significantly lower than their TD peers but significantly higher than the DLD group. In pragmatics, ADHD children performed numerically lower than any other group, but differences did not reach statistical significance. Children with ADHD face difficulties with language skills and especially with structural language. Sophisticated linguistic assessment is crucial, as it facilitates the identification of children with different challenges by measuring performances on distinct components. Language difficulties in ADHD should not be overlooked but must be evaluated thoroughly for more effective intervention planning.

Purpose This study investigated component skills in oral language development utilizing and validating a new assessment battery in a large ( N = 800) and representative sample of Greek students 4–7 years of age. Method All participants enrolled in public schools from four geographical regions (Attica, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Crete) that varied demographically (urban, semiurban, and rural). For the individualized language assessments, we utilized mobile devices (tablet PC) to ensure children's interest and joyful participation as well as reliable administration procedures across sites. Results by confirmatory factor analyses specified and validated five different models in each grade to identify the best conceptualization of language dimensionality in the respective age groups. Results Four-dimensional model provided a slightly better discriminant validity in language data of the preschool group. However, in kindergarten and first grades, the five-dimensional model had the best fit to the data to the four-dimensional. Conclusion These findings support the multidimensionality of oral language ability at this phase of development and increase of factor distinctiveness as children grow. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12649214