Morphemes matter: A small scale randomised control trial of vocabulary intervention focusing on affixes for adolescents with (developmental) language disorder.

Purpose: To investigate whether morphological intervention improves understanding of affixes in adolescents with a language disorder and whether progress generalises. Method: A total of 25 adolescents aged 13–15 years participated in this single-blind trial with random allocation. All participants h...

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Published in:International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology Vol. 28; no. 4; pp. 851 - 870
Main Authors: Glisson, Laura, Tutty, Rachel, Heine, Caroline, Burke, Caroline, Hughes, Lucy, Dawson, Nicola, Ebbels, Susan
Format: research tables/charts randomized controlled trial Journal Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd Aug2026
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Aug2026
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      pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd
      place: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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        10.1080/17549507.2025.2526539
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        atl: Morphemes matter: A small scale randomised control trial of vocabulary intervention focusing on affixes for adolescents with (developmental) language disorder.
      aug:
        au:
          Glisson, Laura
          Tutty, Rachel
          Heine, Caroline
          Burke, Caroline
          Hughes, Lucy
          Dawson, Nicola
          Ebbels, Susan
        affil: Moor House School & College, Oxted, UK
      sug:
        subj:
          Language Disorders Therapy
          Vocabulary
          Language Therapy
          Human
          United Kingdom
          Male
          Female
          Adolescence
          Randomized Controlled Trials
          Random Assignment
          Comparative Studies
          Descriptive Statistics
          Auditory Perceptual Disorders
          Linguistics
          Language Development
          Adolescent: 13-18 years
          Male
          Female
      ab: Purpose: To investigate whether morphological intervention improves understanding of affixes in adolescents with a language disorder and whether progress generalises. Method: A total of 25 adolescents aged 13–15 years participated in this single-blind trial with random allocation. All participants had a language disorder; 18 with developmental language disorder, four with associated genetic conditions, and three with autism. A total of 11 participants received twice-weekly morphological intervention for 30 min with a speech-language pathologist for 8 weeks, while 14 received intervention as usual. Two tests were administered pre- and post-intervention: Affix definition and an adapted rehit task, which tested participants' ability to work out the meaning of novel words containing affixes. To investigate generalisation to untaught affixes, only half of the affixes were taught in intervention. Result: Those in the intervention group made significantly more progress than controls on both tasks, but only on taught affixes. Therefore, learning generalised to understanding the meaning of taught affixes in combinations with new roots (adapted rehit task) but did not generalise to untaught affixes on either task. Conclusion: The intervention was effective and learning generalised to other words containing taught affixes. Intervention for affixes has potential to greatly increase understanding of vocabulary following relatively small amounts of intervention.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        research
        tables/charts
        randomized controlled trial
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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