Morphological skills in prematurely born seven-year-old children

Abstract

Many researches conducted in the world confirmed the negative consequences of premature birth in the sense of lower language abilities. Information on the morphological development of prematurely born children in Croatia is very scarce. The aim of the present study was to acquire information on morphological skills of prematurely born seven-year-old children at the beginning of their primary school education. Good morphological skills enable the reading and writing skills to be properly acquired, thus making good language skills that are particularly important at the beginning of the schooling process. Study results revealed lower achievements in prematurely born subjects on assignments that require morphological identification of plural and plural of pseudowords. This shortage in morphological skills is a very significant and risky factor for the development of reading and writing disabilities. When prematurely born, preschool children should be monitored for language abilities development in order to prevent and alleviate the possible disability.