The Role of Morphological Awareness in Listening Comprehension of Chinese Blind Children: The Mediation of Vocabulary Knowledge

Ruibo Xie,1,2 Yue Xia,1,2 Xinchun Wu,3 Ying Zhao,3 Hongjun Chen,3 Peng Sun,3 Jie Feng3 1Parents Education Research Institution, College of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, People’s Republic of China; 2Key Laboratory of Intelligent Education Technology and Application of Zhejjiang Province, College of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, People’s Republic of China; 3Research Center of Children’s Reading and Learning, Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xinchun WuResearch Center of Children’s Reading and Learning, Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail xcwu@bnu.edu.cnBackground: Listening comprehension is particularly important in children without sight. Little research has focused on listening comprehension. There are strong correlations among syllables, morphemes, and orthographic representations in Chinese. For this reason, vocabulary knowledge may have a mediating role in morphological awareness and listening comprehension in blind children during the elementary school.Methods: The study that included measures of children’s age, working memory, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and listening comprehension was administered to 142 Chinese‐speaking blind children during the early elementary level (Grades 1 to 3) and late (Grades 4 to 6). Through a mediation analysis following the bootstrapping procedures.Results: The study shows that (1) morphological awareness predicted listening comprehension in blind children directly; (2) after children’s age, working memory, rapid automatized naming, and phonological awareness controlled, vocabulary knowledge plays a mediating role in morphological awareness and listening comprehension.Conclusion: The findings of the present study indicate the important unique role of morphological awareness and the mediation of vocabulary knowledge in blind children’s listening comprehension during the elementary school years.Keywords: morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, listening comprehension, blindness, Chinese