Abstract
AbstractStudies on the processing of non-active (NACT) voice have indicated that passive sentences are more difficult to comprehend and require more time to process. Children with Reading Difficulties (RDs) face problems with sentence comprehension, which are often attributed to phonological processing, working memory, syntactic awareness limitations, or a maturation delay. Using an online self-paced reading task, we investigated the effect of voice morphology and argument structure on sentence processing in 3 groups of participants; 30 children RDs, 28 Age-Matched (AM) controls without RDs, and 28 young Beginning Readers (BRs). Our results suggest that although the RDs and BR groups present similar reading times, their reading patterns differ qualitatively. Beginning Readers experienced greater processing delays when processing NACT structures, suggesting that they have not yet fully grasped the properties of the various NACT verbs. However, the RDs group presents effects not found in the BR group; children with RDs were sensitive to the properties of the different types of NACT verbs showing (a) evidence that the language processor successfully engages in predictions based on the morphosyntactic and lexical characteristics of verbs and (b) preference for default/prototypical readings. These results point toward processing limitations that are greatly affected by syntactic complexity.
Highlights
Successful language comprehension is a cognitively challenging process that requires a number of different but interrelated processes such as vocabulary knowledge and retrieval (Verhoeven & van Leeuwe, 2008), syntactic (Oakhill & Cain, 2011), and semantic processing (Torgesen, 2000), as well as discourse and pragmatic integration
Within-group comparisons revealed that the Reading Difficulties (RDs) group performed significantly faster in the Active morphology category compared to Reciprocals (t(14565)=3.139; p =.017), while the Beginning Readers (BRs) group performed significantly faster in the Active morphology category compared to Anticausatives (t(14565)=3.471; p = .005), Passives (t(14565)=3.788; p =.002), and Reciprocals (t(14565)=34.078; p
Regarding research question 1 (RQ1), these findings are a preliminary indication that the BR group faces difficulties with NACT morphology, compared to ACT, with the exception of reflexives, which seemed to be processed almost as fast as ACT verbs
Summary
Successful language comprehension is a cognitively challenging process that requires a number of different but interrelated processes such as vocabulary knowledge and retrieval (Verhoeven & van Leeuwe, 2008), syntactic (Oakhill & Cain, 2011), and semantic processing (Torgesen, 2000), as well as discourse and pragmatic integration. Individuals with less developed language skills, such as young children or children with language or Reading Difficulties (RDs), need to spend more cognitive resources on basic processes like visual or auditory processing, decoding, and lexical retrieval, compared to typical experienced speakers, which causes higher level processes like sentence processing to become a greater challenge. Children with RDs or dyslexia often present specific limitations in reading tasks with respect to decoding, comprehension, or both, which is often attributed to limitations that go beyond reading and are relevant to phonological processing (e.g., Goswami, 2015), semantic recognition of words, and nonwords (Verhoeven et al, 2011), visual–spatial abilities (Franceschini et al, 2012), working memory (e.g., Kibby et al, 2004), or syntactic awareness (e.g., Leikin, 2002). The study examines the effects of increasing complexity caused by the morphological, lexical, and syntactic aspects of verbs on the way sentences are processed when cognitive or linguistic resources are limited, or less developed
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