Pay attention to digital text: The impact of the media on text comprehension and self-monitoring in higher-education students with ADHD

The Contribution of Sustained Attention and Response Inhibition to Reading Comprehension Among Japanese Adolescents

BACKGROUND

Previous studies demonstrated the influential role of sustained attention in the reading comprehension of alphabetic writing systems. However, there is limited understanding of how these cognitive functions contribute to reading comprehension in non-alphabetic systems, such as Japanese. This study seeks to explore this gap, focusing on how sustained attention and response inhibition function in a writing system where some of the characters represent meanings rather than sounds, introducing another layer of difficulty in the complex process of reading; Methods: Seventy-five Japanese 9th grade students performed a task to assess sustained attention and response inhibition. The cognitive test was carried out using tablets to enable feasible parallel group administration while maintaining high comparability with ecological classroom settings. Reading comprehension was measured using an exam that the participants took as part of their educational routine; Results: Our results indicate that both sustained attention and response inhibition significantly contributed to the reading comprehension of Japanese 9th grade students; Conclusions: These results replicate and expand previous studies documenting the contribution of sustained attention on the reading comprehension of alphabetic writing systems to a non-alphabetic system. Moreover, our findings unravel another important cognitive factor, namely response inhibition in reading comprehension. We suggest that response inhibition may play a crucial role in reading non-alphabetic writing systems that pose high cognitive demands, such as Japanese.

Print and digital reading habits and comprehension in children with and without special education needs

BACKGROUND

Text comprehension is a major obstacle for many Primary school students with special education needs (SEN). Reading episodes bring students opportunities to be exposed to new vocabulary and knowledge, potentially boosting their development of text comprehension skills.

AIMS

Our study seeks to understand how reading frequency (leisure and academic) and reading medium (print and digital) contribute to the development of text comprehension during Primary school in students with and without SEN.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

We tested 2289 Spanish students from fourth to sixth grade, from which 212 had an official decision of SEN. Students self-reported their reading frequency (as a measure of their reading habits) and completed a standardized text comprehension test. We employed multiple regression models with a robust maximum likelihood estimator to test associations between reading frequency and comprehension.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

Students' comprehension was positively associated with their leisure print reading habits, and negatively associated with their frequency of academic digital reading. Those associations were independent of SEN status.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Results highlight the importance of promoting leisure reading in print to all students, regardless of SEN status. In addition, caution is advised when encouraging Primary school children to use digital texts when the emphasis is on comprehending texts for acquiring knowledge.

Higher theta-beta ratio during screen-based vs. printed paper is related to lower attention in children: An EEG study

Reading is considered a non-intuitive, cognitively demanding ability requiring synchronization between several neural networks supporting visual, language processing and higher-order abilities. With the involvement of technology in our everyday life, reading from a screen has become widely used. Several studies point to challenges in processing written materials from the screen due to changes in attention allocation when reading from a screen compared to reading from a printed paper. The current study examined the differences in brain activation when reading from a screen compared to reading from a printed paper focusing on spectral power related to attention in fifteen 6-8-year-old children. Using an electroencephalogram, children read two different age-appropriate texts, without illustrations, presented randomly on the screen and on a printed paper. Data were analyzed using spectral analyses in brain regions related to language, visual processing, and cognitive control, focusing on theta vs. beta waveforms. Results indicated that while reading from a printed paper was accompanied by higher energy in high-frequency bands (beta, gamma), reading from the screen was manifested by a higher power in the lower frequency bands (alpha, theta). Higher theta compared to the beta ratio, representing challenges in allocating attention to a given task, was found for the screen reading compared to the printed paper reading condition. Also, a significant negative correlation was found between differences in theta/beta ratio for screen vs paper reading and accuracy level in the age-normalized Sky-Search task measuring attention and a positive correlation with performance time. These results provide neurobiological support for the greater cognitive load and reduced focused attention during screen-based compared to print-based reading and suggest a different reliance on attention resources for the two conditions in children.

The Task Matters: A Scoping Review on Reading Comprehension Abilities in ADHD

OBJECTIVE

A broad range of tasks have been used to classify individuals with ADHD with reading comprehension difficulties. However, the inconsistency in the literature warrants a scoping review of current knowledge about the relationship between ADHD diagnosis and reading comprehension ability.

METHOD

A comprehensive search strategy was performed to identify relevant articles on the topic. Thirty-four articles met inclusion criteria for the current review.

RESULTS

The evidence as a whole suggests reading comprehension is impaired in ADHD. The most prominent effect was found in studies where participants retell or pick out central ideas in stories. On these tasks, participants with ADHD performed consistently worse than typically developing controls. However, some studies found that performance in ADHD improved when reading comprehension task demands were low.

CONCLUSION

Results suggest that performance in ADHD depends on the way reading comprehension is measured and further guide future work clarifying why there are such discrepant findings across studies.

Visual Attention and Lexical Involvement in L1 and L2 Word Processing: Emotional Stroop Effect

Given the fact that the process of engaging and interacting with the text is not only the function of a reader but also the text itself, the current study attempts to examine the role of the type of the word in the attentional engagement. More specifically, the present investigation aims to verify the interplay of sensorimotor information, emotions, and the linguistic information in the word processing. In so doing, for the scale validation, a sample of 220 Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners from different language institutes were requested to complete the newly designed Persian and English lexical involvement scales. The results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) supported the factor structure and the reliability of the measures. Moreover, using Emotional Stroop task in the experimental set up, the results revealed that there is a strong positive relationship between lexical involvement and visual attentional engagement in L1(Persian). The association was conversely negative in L2 (English). Finally, the statistical analysis indicates that the lexical stimuli differ regarding their magnitude of lexical involvement in L1 and L2.

The inattentive on-screen reading: Reading medium affects attention and reading comprehension under time pressure

This study explored the influence of reading media and reading time-frame on readers' on-task attention, metacognitive calibration, and reading comprehension. One hundred and forty undergraduates were allocated to one of four experimental conditions varying on the reading medium (in print vs. on screen) and on the reading time-frame (free vs. pressured time). Readers' mindwandering while reading, prediction of performance on a comprehension test, and their text comprehension were measured. In-print readers, but not on-screen readers, mindwandered less on the pressured than in the free time condition, indicating higher task adaptation in print. Accordingly, on-screen readers in the pressured condition comprehended less than the other three groups. Mindwandering and text comprehension were similar under free reading time regardless of medium. Lastly, there were no differences in readers' metacognitive calibration. The results support the hypothesis of shallow information processing when reading on screen under time constraints.