Morphological Processing in Developing Readers: A Systematic Review

This study investigated morphological processing in developing readers and which factors can modulate this process. Following the PRISMA guidelines, the search was carried out in the Web of Science, Scielo and PsycInfo databases, with no time limits. A total of 192 studies were identified. After the eligibility criteria were applied, 34 articles were included in the final sample, including 28 articles from the references of the sample studies. There is evidence that morphological processing occurs, in different languages, around eight years old, with discrepancies depending on individual, linguistic and psycholinguistic variables. Our findings suggest that, initially, morphological decomposition may be restricted to those complex words where there is orthographic and phonological overlap with another monomorphemic word, with activation of the latter driving the decomposition process. The study contributes to a better understanding of how morphological processing occurs during visual word recognition in children, identifying and discussing variables that can modulate this process. We hope that the results of this study can guide future research on the development of reading.