Working memory deficits in poor comprehenders reflect underlying language impairments

Adapting Curricula for Children With Language Comprehension Deficits

PURPOSE

We will describe how a multisite research team adapted a language-focused curriculum to be used in a scale-up project. Specifically, we identified underlying principles to modify a Tier 1 whole-classroom language comprehension-focused curriculum to be used as a Tier 2 small-group curriculum with children identified as at risk for low language comprehension, including children with developmental language disorder (DLD).

METHOD

We discuss how researchers used the following five guiding principles to adapt a curriculum for children at risk for low language comprehension, including children with DLD: (a) increased and ongoing professional development, (b) simplification of language input, (c) increased scaffolding, (d) attention to distributed practice, and (e) materials to support diversity and inclusion.

RESULTS

We used these guiding principles to modify a popular language-based curriculum used in schools across the country.

CONCLUSION

This clinical focus article showcases how guiding principles and frameworks for adaptation, within implementation science, can serve as a guidepost for speech-language pathologists and other educators who are adapting or scaling up a curriculum or intervention that was not designed for their target population.

Concepts, abstractness and inner speech

We explore the role of inner speech (covert self-directed talk) during the acquisition and use of concepts differing in abstractness. Following Vygotsky, inner speech results from the internalization of linguistically mediated interactions that regulate cognition and behaviour. When we acquire and process abstract concepts, uncertainties about word meaning might lead us to search actively for their meaning. Inner speech might play a role in this searching process and be differentially involved in concept learning compared with use of known concepts. Importantly, inner speech comes in different varieties-e.g. it can be expanded or condensed (with the latter involving syntactic and semantic forms of abbreviation). Do we use inner speech differently with concepts varying in abstractness? Which kinds of inner speech do we preferentially use with different kinds of abstract concepts (e.g. emotions versus numbers)? What other features of inner speech, such as dialogicality, might facilitate our use of concepts varying in abstractness (by allowing us to monitor the limits of our knowledge in simulated social exchanges, through a process we term inner social metacognition)? In tackling these questions, we address the possibility that different varieties of inner speech are flexibly used during the acquisition of concepts and their everyday use. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.

The relationship between working memory updating components and reading comprehension

The objective of this study was to determine the contribution of retrieval and substitution components of working memory updating to reading comprehension. Difficulties in reading comprehension have been related to the inability to update information in working memory. Updating is a complex process comprising various subprocesses, such as retrieving information into the focus of attention and substituting information that is no longer relevant. Various numerical subtasks requiring or not requiring the substitution and retrieval components of working memory updating, as well as reading comprehension and general cognitive measures, were administered to a sample (n = 148) of 4th grade children. Less-skilled comprehenders showed lower accuracy when information retrieval was required. In contrast, substitution was not related to reading comprehension. These findings suggest that reading comprehension difficulties are related to the efficacy of information retrieval during updating in working memory.

Knowledge mapping of the research on lexical inferencing: A bibliometric analysis

Lexical inferencing functions as one of the most important and effective skills used in language comprehension pertaining to psychological, cognitive and neurological aspects. Given its complex nature and crucial role in language comprehension, lexical inferencing has received considerable attention. The present study visualized the knowledge domain of the research on lexical inferencing based on a total of 472 articles collected from Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection of Thomson Reuters from 2001 to 2021. The bibliographic data were analyzed through co-cited articles, co-citation clusters of references, and co-occurring keywords to identify holistic intellectual landscape of lexical inferencing with special focus on its intellectual structure and base, and hot research topics. The main intellectual base includes probability of activating lexical inferencing in working memory and encoding in long-term memory, the role of lexical inferencing in reading comprehension, in connected speech, in children's derivation under pragmatic context, and in psychological and neurocognitive processes underlying language processing mechanism. Hot topics are comprised the impacts of lexical inferencing on language acquisition and comprehension (written and spoken language comprehension), the factors (context variables, vocabulary knowledge, and morphological awareness) affecting the presence and efficacy of lexical inferencing, and the time course of lexical inferencing during reading. Critically, the results of this study demonstrated that the contribution of lexical inferencing to language comprehension was strongly correlated with learner-related and discourse-related variables. The study shed valuable light on the understanding of the intellectual background and the dynamic patterns of lexical inferencing over the past two decades, thereby future work in lexical inferencing is suggested as well.

The impact of mild traumatic brain injury on reading comprehension and eye movements: preliminary results

INTRODUCTION

Individuals who sustain a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) can suffer from executive function, working memory, and attention deficits, which can impact functional task performance, including reading comprehension. Individuals with mTBI commonly report reading difficulties, but such difficulties have been historically difficult to capture using behavioral measures. The current study examined reading performance in those with and without mTBI using eye-tracking measures, which may be more sensitive to reading impairment in mTBI.

METHOD/RESULTS

In Experiment 1, 26 participants with a history of mTBI and 26 healthy control participants completed working memory (WM) and reading comprehension tasks. We found no differences in behavioral measures but found that spontaneous eye-blinking frequency was lower during the reading task in the mTBI group. In Experiment 2, we explored the impact of auditory distraction (e.g., multi-talker babble) on reading and memory performance. Twenty-three new participants with a history of mTBI and 26 healthy control participants completed a short-term memory (STM) task, a WM task, and a reading comprehension task under two distraction conditions. As in Experiment 1, we found no differences on behavioral measures, but observed significant differences on spontaneous eye-blinking frequency between those with and without mTBI. Group differences in distraction effects were also observed and performance on the WM task predicted reading comprehension performance.

CONCLUSIONS

The lack of differences on behavioral measures between groups, but lower frequencies of spontaneous eye blinking in the mTBI group suggests that while these individuals successfully completed the reading comprehension task, they may require more cognitive resources to do so.

Short Vestibular and Cognitive Training Improves Oral Reading Fluency in Children with Dyslexia

(1) Background: This study explored the effect of short vestibular and cognitive training on the reading speed in dyslexic children. (2) Methods: The reading speed was evaluated by using a reading test (Évaluation de la Lecture en FluencE, ELFE) in a crossover design before (baseline) and after vestibular training (post VT) and no vestibular training (post no VT). Nineteen dyslexic children (9.48 ± 0.15 years) participated in the study. The vestibular and cognitive training (software developed by BeonSolution S.r.l.) consisted in four exercises presented on a Wacom tablet 10″ done for 16 min per session two times per week for four weeks; each exercise was composed of eight levels with increased difficulty. (3) Results: Following vestibular and cognitive training, dyslexic children increased their reading speed; interestingly, such an increase persisted at least one month after training. (4) Conclusions: Vestibular and cognitive training could improve the vestibular network, which is well known for being involved in several cognition functions leading to reading improvement in dyslexic children. Adaptive mechanisms could be responsible for maintaining such improvement for at least one month.

Investigating Reading Comprehension in Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities: Evaluating the Simple View of Reading

Reading comprehension difficulties are common in individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID), but the influences of underlying abilities related to reading comprehension in this group have rarely been investigated. One aim of this study was to investigate the Simple View of Reading as a theoretical framework to describe cognitive and linguistic abilities predicting individual differences in reading comprehension in adolescents with non-specific ID. A second aim was to investigate whether predictors of listening comprehension and reading comprehension suggest that individuals with ID have a delayed pattern of development (copying early grade variance in reading comprehension) or a different pattern of development involving a new or an unusual pattern of cognitive and linguistic predictors. A sample of 136 adolescents with non-specific ID was assessed on reading comprehension, decoding, linguistic, and cognitive measures. The hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation models. The results showed that the Simple View of Reading was not applicable in explaining reading comprehension in this group, however, the concurrent predictors of comprehension (vocabulary and phonological executive-loaded working memory) followed a delayed profile.

Exploring sources of poor reading comprehension in English language learners

This study examined the sources of reading comprehension difficulties in English language learners (ELLs). The characteristics of ELL poor comprehenders were compared to their English as a first language (EL1) peers. Participants included 124 ELLs who spoke Chinese as an L1 and 79 EL1 students. Using a regression technique based on age, non-verbal reasoning, word reading accuracy, and word reading fluency, three types of comprehenders (poor, average, and good) were identified within each language group. The groups were then compared on measures of oral language skills (vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and listening comprehension), metalinguistic skills (morphological awareness and syntactic awareness), working memory, and higher-level processing skills (inference, conjunction use, and comprehension monitoring). ELL poor comprehenders had significantly lower scores than ELL average and good comprehenders on vocabulary breadth, listening comprehension, and morphological awareness, whereas there were no significant differences between the average and good comprehender groups on these skills. Additionally, both ELL poor and average comprehenders had lower scores than ELL good comprehenders on all three higher-level skills. Finally, results showed that ELL poor comprehenders scored lower than EL1 poor comprehenders on vocabulary breadth, listening comprehension, and morphological awareness, but the two groups did not differ on higher-level skills. Theoretical and educational implications for the identification and instruction of ELL poor comprehenders are discussed.

Online inference making and comprehension monitoring in children during reading: Evidence from eye movements

Inference generation and comprehension monitoring are essential elements of successful reading comprehension. While both improve with age and reading development, little is known about when and how children make inferences and monitor their comprehension during the reading process itself. Over two experiments, we monitored the eye movements of two groups of children (age 8–13 years) as they read short passages and answered questions that tapped local (Experiment 1) and global (Experiment 2) inferences. To tap comprehension monitoring, the passages contained target words which were consistent or inconsistent with the context. Comprehension question location was also manipulated with the question appearing before or after the passage. Children made local inferences during reading, but the evidence was less clear for global inferences. Children were sensitive to inconsistencies that relied on the generation of an inference, consistent with successful comprehension monitoring, although this was seen only very late in the eye movement record. Although question location had a large effect on reading times, it had no effect on global comprehension in one experiment and reading the question first had a detrimental effect in the other. We conclude that children appear to prioritise efficiency over completeness when reading, generating inferences spontaneously only when they are necessary for establishing a coherent representation of the text.

Up-regulation of proactive control is associated with beneficial effects of a childhood gymnastics program on response preparation and working memory

The current study focused on the effects of an 8-week motor skill-based physical activity (i.e., gymnastics) program on the contingent negative variation derived from event-related brain potentials (CNV-ERP) during a working memory task in children. Children aged 7-10 years old were assigned to a gymnastics group (n = 26) or a wait-list control group (n = 24). The gymnastics group engaged in a gymnastics program whereas children in the control group were asked to maintain their typical routine during the intervention period. Working memory performance was measured by a delayed-matching working memory task, accompanied by CNV-ERP collection. The results revealed significant improvement of response accuracy from pre-test to post-test in the gymnastic group regardless of memory demands. Moreover, significant increase from pre-test to post-test in the initial CNV was observed in the gymnastic group regardless of memory demands. Bivariate correlations further indicated that, in the gymnastic group, increases in response accuracy from pre-test to post-test were correlated with increases in initial CNV from pre-test to post-test in task conditions with lower and higher memory loads. Overall, the current findings suggest that up-regulation of proactive control may characterize the beneficial effects of childhood motor skill-based physical activity on working memory.

Can inferencing be trained in preschoolers using shared book-reading? A randomised controlled trial of parents' inference-eliciting questions on oral inferencing ability

The ability to make inferences is essential for effective language comprehension. While inferencing training benefits reading comprehension in school-aged children (see Elleman, 2017, for a review), we do not yet know whether it is beneficial to support the development of these skills prior to school entry. In a pre-registered randomised controlled trial, we evaluated the efficacy of a parent-delivered intervention intended to promote four-year-olds' oral inferencing skills during shared book-reading. One hundred children from socioeconomically diverse backgrounds were randomly assigned to inferencing training or an active control condition of daily maths activities. The training was found to have no effect on inferencing. However, inferencing measures were highly correlated with children's baseline language ability. This suggests that a more effective approach to scaffolding inferencing in the preschool years might be to focus on promoting vocabulary to develop richer and stronger semantic networks.

Developmental dyslexia in Hindi readers: Is consistent sound-symbol mapping an asset in reading? Evidence from phonological and visuospatial working memory

Phonological processing deficit is a hallmark of developmental dyslexia indicating a core cognitive dysfunction. Importance of working memory in reading and its association with the tasks measuring phonological processing is also debated in research. The present study investigates the role of working memory, phonological, and orthographic processing in Hindi-speaking dyslexic children (22 dyslexic and 23 control, of Grade 4). Hindi has a consistent symbol-sound mapping with an extensive list of visually complex graphemes. Although consistent symbol-sound mapping facilitates reading, graphemic complexity has its cost on memory. A range of tasks measuring phonological processing, working memory, and orthographic knowledge was designed and administered. Dyslexic children scored significantly lower than controls not only on working memory tasks but also on the tasks of phonological processing and orthographic knowledge. Moreover, the difference in working memory between dyslexic and normal children was more pronounced with increased task complexity. These results highlight complex relationships between working memory, phonological and orthographic processing together with visual attentional processing in Hindi, that contribute to the reading deficits encountered by children with dyslexia. Their respective contributions are considered in the discussion with some of the visual and phonological features of Hindi orthography and their associated effects in reading.

Protocol for a transdiagnostic study of children with problems of attention, learning and memory (CALM)

BACKGROUND

A substantial proportion of the school-age population experience cognitive-related learning difficulties. Not all children who struggle at school receive a diagnosis, yet their problems are sufficient to warrant additional support. Understanding the causes of learning difficulties is the key to developing effective prevention and intervention strategies for struggling learners. The aim of this project is to apply a transdiagnostic approach to children with cognitive developmental difficulties related to learning to discover the underpinning mechanisms of learning problems.

METHODS

A cohort of 1000 children aged 5 to 18 years is being recruited. The sample consists of 800 children with problems in attention, learning and / memory, as identified by a health or educational professional, and 200 typically-developing children recruited from the same schools as those with difficulties. All children are completing assessments of cognition, including tests of phonological processing, short-term and working memory, attention, executive function and processing speed. Their parents/ carers are completing questionnaires about the child's family history, communication skills, mental health and behaviour. Children are invited for an optional MRI brain scan and are asked to provide an optional DNA sample (saliva). Hypothesis-free data-driven methods will be used to identify the cognitive, behavioural and neural dimensions of learning difficulties. Machine-learning approaches will be used to map the multi-dimensional space of the cognitive, neural and behavioural measures to identify clusters of children with shared profiles. Finally, group comparisons will be used to test theories of development and disorder.

DISCUSSION

Our multi-systems approach to identifying the causes of learning difficulties in a heterogeneous sample of struggling learners provides a novel way to enhance our understanding of the common and complex needs of the majority of children who struggle at school. Our broad recruitment criteria targeting all children with cognitive learning problems, irrespective of diagnoses and comorbidities, are novel and make our sample unique. Our dataset will also provide a valuable resource of genetic, imaging and cognitive developmental data for the scientific community.

Early reading skill profiles in typically developing and at-risk first grade readers to inform targeted early reading instruction

This study identified distinct, homogeneous latent profiles of at-risk (n = 141) and not at-risk (n = 149) first grade readers. Separate latent profile analyses were conducted with each subgroup using measures of phonological awareness, decoding, linguistic comprehension, and oral reading fluency. This study also examined which measures best differentiated the latent profiles. Finally, we examined differences on two measures of reading comprehension as a function of profile membership. Results showed two latent profiles of at-risk students and three latent profiles of not at-risk students. Latent profiles were generally rank ordered with regard to achievement across measures. However, the higher performing at-risk profile and the lowest performing not at-risk profile were nearly identical across measures. Phonological awareness and decoding measures were best at differentiating latent profiles, but linguistic comprehension was also important for the lowest performing students. Oral reading fluency was limited to distinguishing the highest achieving students from the other profiles, and did not perform well with the lower achieving profiles. Most of the pairwise comparisons of reading comprehension scores were consistent across measures, but the nearly identical profiles showed a significant difference on only one reading comprehension measure. Implications for identifying at-risk first grade readers and designing targeted early reading interventions for at-risk students are discussed.

Reading Comprehension in Children With and Without ASD: The Role of Word Reading, Oral Language, and Working Memory

Word reading and oral language predict reading comprehension, which is generally poor, in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, working memory (WM), despite documented weaknesses, has not been thoroughly investigated as a predictor of reading comprehension in ASD. This study examined the role of three parallel WM N-back tasks using abstract shapes, familiar objects, and written words in children (8-14 years) with ASD (n = 19) and their typically developing peers (n = 24). All three types of WM were significant predictors of reading comprehension when considered alone. However, these relationships were rendered non-significant with the addition of age, word reading, vocabulary, and group entered into the models. Oral vocabulary emerged as the strongest predictor of reading comprehension.

Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert

There is intense public interest in questions surrounding how children learn to read and how they can best be taught. Research in psychological science has provided answers to many of these questions but, somewhat surprisingly, this research has been slow to make inroads into educational policy and practice. Instead, the field has been plagued by decades of "reading wars." Even now, there remains a wide gap between the state of research knowledge about learning to read and the state of public understanding. The aim of this article is to fill this gap. We present a comprehensive tutorial review of the science of learning to read, spanning from children's earliest alphabetic skills through to the fluent word recognition and skilled text comprehension characteristic of expert readers. We explain why phonics instruction is so central to learning in a writing system such as English. But we also move beyond phonics, reviewing research on what else children need to learn to become expert readers and considering how this might be translated into effective classroom practice. We call for an end to the reading wars and recommend an agenda for instruction and research in reading acquisition that is balanced, developmentally informed, and based on a deep understanding of how language and writing systems work.

The Comprehension Problems of Children with Poor Reading Comprehension despite Adequate Decoding: A Meta-Analysis

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the comprehension problems of children who have a specific reading comprehension deficit (SCD), which is characterized by poor reading comprehension despite adequate decoding. The meta-analysis included 86 studies of children with SCD who were assessed in reading comprehension and oral language (vocabulary, listening comprehension, storytelling ability, and semantic and syntactic knowledge). Results indicated that children with SCD had deficits in oral language (d = -0.78, 95% CI [-0.89, -0.68], but these deficits were not as severe as their deficit in reading comprehension (d = -2.78, 95% CI [-3.01, -2.54]). When compared to reading comprehension age-matched normal readers, the oral language skills of the two groups were comparable (d = 0.32, 95% CI [-0.49, 1.14]), which suggests that the oral language weaknesses of children with SCD represent a developmental delay rather than developmental deviance. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Psychomotor Ability and Short-term Memory, and Reading and Mathematics Achievement in Children

Objective

The aim of our study was to examine whether the findings from previous research, indicating the role of short-term memory as a mediator of the relationship between motor coordination and academic achievement in adolescents, is also evident in a younger child population.

Method

The study utilized a quantative cross-sectional design involving 133 children aged 8-12. The McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development (MAND) provided four indicators of psychomotor ability (Finger Nose, Walking, Balancing, and Jumping). The Woodcock-Johnson Cognitive battery and the Automated Working Memory Assessment (AWMA) provided two measures of short-term memory (Numbers Reversed and Digit Recall) and the WJIII Achievement battery provided two measures of reading achievement (Letter-word Identification and Passage Comprehension) and two measures of mathematics achievement (Applied Problems and Calculation). Structural equation modeling was used, controlling for age, processing speed, crystallized, and fluid intelligence where appropriate.

Results

The results found support for the hypothesis that short-term memory fully mediates the relationship between psychomotor ability and reading and mathematics achievement.

Conclusion

These findings indicate the significant affect of psychomotor ability on learning outcomes and consequently the need to assess these in considering learning difficulties, and as such these findings also advance understanding of developmental neural mechanisms underpinning the relationships.

Curriculum-Based Language Interventions: What, Who, Why, Where, and How?

Purpose

School-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) have been asked to be contributors to the educational curriculum (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2010). The aim of this tutorial is to provide elementary school-based SLPs with a guide to explore curriculum-based language interventions (CBLIs) in their practices.

Method

In this tutorial, the authors (a) describe CBLI, (b) review the existing literature available to guide this type of practice in elementary school, (c) provide examples of how we have explored CBLIs, and (d) discuss the existing barriers for implementing CBLIs in schools.

Conclusion

SLPs have language and literacy expertise qualifying us to be well-suited for playing an important role in supporting CBLI. The information presented in this article provides school-based SLPs with support to implement CBLIs in early elementary school and illustrates the need for additional evidence to support CBLIs.

Reading Comprehension Difficulties in Chinese-English Bilingual Children

The co-occurrence of reading comprehension difficulties for first language (L1) Chinese and second language (L2) English and associated longitudinal cognitive-linguistic correlates in each language were investigated. Sixteen poor comprehenders in English and 16 poor comprehenders in Chinese, 18 poor readers in both, and 18 children with normal performance in both were identified at age 10. The prevalence rate for being poor in both was 52.94%, suggesting that approximately half of children who are at risk for Chinese reading comprehension difficulty are also at risk for English reading comprehension difficulty. Chinese word reading, phonological, and morphological awareness were longitudinal correlates of poor comprehension in Chinese. English word reading and vocabulary were longitudinal correlates of poor comprehension in English. Chinese phonological awareness was an additional correlate of poor comprehension in English. Moreover, poor comprehenders in both Chinese and English showed slower rapid automatized naming scores than the other groups. Findings highlight some factors that might be critical for reading comprehension in L1 Chinese and L2 English; fluency is likely to be a critical part of reading comprehension across languages. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Phonological similarity effects in verbal complex span

Phonological similarity effects were used to assess the role of acoustic coding in verbal complex span, a processing-plus-storage measure found to correlate significantly with aspects of complex cognition. Three experiments demonstrated consistent effects of phonological similarity on listening span. These effects appeared relatively insensitive to manipulations of task materials (Experiment 1) and differences in processing task demands (Experiments 2 and 3). The results were interpreted as reflecting a significant role for the phonological loop in supporting verbal complex span and a multicomponent view of working memory, as tapped by these tests. Phonological similarity did not significantly interact with aspects of the tasks varied across Experiments 1 to 3, suggesting a relative robustness of the effect. However, variation in the phonological similarity effect sizes across Experiments 1 to 3 supports the suggestion that task demands and characteristics have the potential to disrupt the phonological similarity effect and, by implication, the reliance on a phonological code.

Specific effects of working memory training on the reading skills of Chinese children with developmental dyslexia

Most research on working memory (WM) training for children with developmental dyslexia (DD) has focused on western alphabetical languages. Moreover, most of these studies used a combination of training tasks targeting a variety of WM components, making it difficult to determine whether WM training generates a general improvement in overall reading, or improves specific cognitive skills corresponding to the WM components that are targeted in training. We tested the general and specific effects of WM training on the reading skills of 45 Chinese children with DD, grades 3 to 5. In Experiment 1, the experimental group received a program targeting the verbal WM component; in Experiment 2, the experimental group was trained with a program targeting visuospatial WM. In both experiments the control group played a placebo video game. In Experiment 1, the experimental group outperformed the control group on the visual rhyming task, which is highly correlated with verbal WM. In Experiment 2, the experimental group outperformed the control group on the orthographic awareness test, which is highly correlated with visuospatial WM. Furthermore, in both Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, the experimental groups outperformed the control groups on the fast word naming test, which is highly related to both visuospatial WM and verbal WM. Results indicated that WM training improved specific reading-related cognitive skills that are highly correlated with the specific WM components that were the target of training.

The roles of cognitive and language abilities in predicting decoding and reading comprehension: comparisons of dyslexia and specific language impairment

This study aimed to (a) explore the roles of cognitive and language variables in predicting reading abilities of two groups of individuals with reading disabilities (i.e., dyslexia and specific language impairment) and (b) examine which variable(s) is the most predictive in differentiating two groups. Inclusion/exclusion criteria applied to categorize the two groups yielded a total of 63 participants (n = 44 for the dyslexia; n = 19 for the specific language impairment). A stepwise multiple regression approach was conducted to examine which cognitive and/or language variables made the largest contribution to reading abilities (i.e., Phonetic Decoding Efficiency, Word Attack, Sight Word Efficiency, and Passage Comprehension). Results revealed that there were significant differences in which measures of cognitive and language ability predicted individuals with dyslexia and speech and language impairments reading ability, showing that the cognitive and language variables underlying their difficulty with reading abilities were not the same across the two groups. A discriminant function analysis showed that a measure of Verbal Comprehension, Phonological Awareness, and Phonetic Decoding Efficiency can be used to differentiate the two groups. These findings support the tenet that dyslexia and specific language impairment are two subgroups of reading disabilities and that thorough diagnostic evaluations are needed to differentiate between these two subgroups. Distinctions of this nature are central to determining the type and intensity of language-based interventions.

Behavioral Performance and Neural Areas Associated with Memory Processes Contribute to Math and Reading Achievement in 6-year-old Children

Associations between working memory and academic achievement (math and reading) are well documented. Surprisingly, little is known of the contributions of episodic memory, segmented into temporal memory (recollection proxy) and item recognition (familiarity proxy), to academic achievement. This is the first study to observe these associations in typically developing 6-year old children. Overlap in neural correlates exists between working memory, episodic memory, and math and reading achievement. We attempted to tease apart the neural contributions of working memory, temporal memory, and item recognition to math and reading achievement. Results suggest that working memory and temporal memory, but not item recognition, are important contributors to both math and reading achievement, and that EEG power during a working memory task contributes to performance on tests of academic achievement.

Intelligence and Verbal Short-Term Memory/Working Memory: Their Interrelationships from Childhood to Young Adulthood and Their Impact on Academic Achievement

Although recent developmental studies exploring the predictive power of intelligence and working memory (WM) for educational achievement in children have provided evidence for the importance of both variables, findings concerning the relative impact of IQ and WM on achievement have been inconsistent. Whereas IQ has been identified as the major predictor variable in a few studies, results from several other developmental investigations suggest that WM may be the stronger predictor of academic achievement. In the present study, data from the Munich Longitudinal Study on the Genesis of Individual Competencies (LOGIC) were used to explore this issue further. The secondary data analysis included data from about 200 participants whose IQ and WM was first assessed at the age of six and repeatedly measured until the ages of 18 and 23. Measures of reading, spelling, and math were also repeatedly assessed for this age range. Both regression analyses based on observed variables and latent variable structural equation modeling (SEM) were carried out to explore whether the predictive power of IQ and WM would differ as a function of time point of measurement (i.e., early vs. late assessment). As a main result of various regression analyses, IQ and WM turned out to be reliable predictors of academic achievement, both in early and later developmental stages, when previous domain knowledge was not included as additional predictor. The latter variable accounted for most of the variance in more comprehensive regression models, reducing the impact of both IQ and WM considerably. Findings from SEM analyses basically confirmed this outcome, indicating IQ impacts on educational achievement in the early phase, and illustrating the strong additional impact of previous domain knowledge on achievement at later stages of development.

"Decoding versus comprehension": Brain responses underlying reading comprehension in children with autism

Despite intact decoding ability, deficits in reading comprehension are relatively common in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, few neuroimaging studies have tested the neural bases of this specific profile of reading deficit in ASD. This fMRI study examined activation and synchronization of the brain's reading network in children with ASD with specific reading comprehension deficits during a word similarities task. Thirteen typically developing children and 18 children with ASD performed the task in the MRI scanner. No statistically significant group differences in functional activation were observed; however, children with ASD showed decreased functional connectivity between the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and the left inferior occipital gyrus (LIOG). In addition, reading comprehension ability significantly positively predicted functional connectivity between the LIFG and left thalamus (LTHAL) among all subjects. The results of this study provide evidence for altered recruitment of reading-related neural resources in ASD children and suggest specific weaknesses in top-down modulation of semantic processing.

A Randomized Control Trial of Working Memory Training With and Without Strategy Instruction: Effects on Young Children's Working Memory and Comprehension

Researchers are increasingly interested in working memory (WM) training. However, it is unclear whether it strengthens comprehension in young children who are at risk for learning difficulties. We conducted a modest study of whether the training of verbal WM would improve verbal WM and passage listening comprehension and whether training effects differed between two approaches: training with and without strategy instruction. A total of 58 first-grade children were randomly assigned to three groups: WM training with a rehearsal strategy, WM training without strategy instruction, and controls. Each member of the two training groups received a one-to-one, 35-min session of verbal WM training on each of 10 consecutive school days, totaling 5.8 hr. Both training groups improved on trained verbal WM tasks, with the rehearsal group making greater gains. Without correction for multiple group comparisons, the rehearsal group made reliable improvements over controls on an untrained verbal WM task and on passage listening comprehension and listening retell measures. The no-strategy-instruction group outperformed controls on passage listening comprehension. When corrected for multiple contrasts, these group differences disappeared but were associated with moderate to large effect sizes. Findings suggest-however tentatively-that brief but intensive verbal WM training may strengthen the verbal WM and comprehension performance of young children at risk. Necessary caveats and possible implications for theory and future research are discussed.

How working memory relates to children's reading comprehension: the importance of domain-specificity in storage and processing

Working memory is considered a well-established predictor of individual variation in reading comprehension in children and adults. However, how storage and processing capacities of working memory in both the phonological and semantic domain relate to reading comprehension is still unclear. In the current study, we investigated the contribution of phonological and semantic storage, and phonological and semantic processing to reading comprehension in 123 Dutch children in fifth grade. We conducted regression and mediation analyses to find out to what extent variation in reading comprehension could be explained by storage and processing capacities in both the phonological and the semantic domain, while controlling for children's decoding and vocabulary. The analyses included tasks that reflect storage only, and working memory tasks that assess processing in addition to storage. Regression analysis including only storage tasks as predictor measures, revealed semantic storage to be a better predictor of reading comprehension than phonological storage. Adding phonological and semantic working memory tasks as additional predictors to the model showed that semantic working memory explained individual variation in reading comprehension over and above all other memory measures. Additional mediation analysis made it clear that semantic storage contributed indirectly to reading comprehension via semantic working memory, indicating that semantic storage tapped by working memory, in addition to processing capacities, explains individual variation in reading comprehension. It can thus be concluded that semantic storage plays a more important role in children's reading comprehension than previously thought.

Online and offline inferential and textual processing of poor comprehenders: Evidence from a probing method

Numerous studies have demonstrated that poor inferential processing underlies the specific deficit of poor comprehenders. However, it is still not clear why poor comprehenders have difficulties in generating inferences while reading and whether this impairment is general or specific to one or more types of inferences. The current study employed an online probing method to examine the spontaneous immediate activation of two inference types-forward-predictive inferences and backward-explanatory inferences-during reading. In addition, we examined the ability of poor comprehenders to retain, suppress, and reactivate text information (relevant for inferencing) in working memory. The participants, 10- to 12-year-old good and poor comprehenders, read short narratives and name inference or text word probes following a predictive, intervening, or bridging sentence. Comparing the size of probe-naming facilitations revealed that poor comprehenders generate predictive inferences, albeit more slowly than good comprehenders, and generate explanatory inferences to a lesser extent than good comprehenders. Moreover, we found that this inferior inferential processing is presumably a result of poor retention and reactivation of inference-evoking text information during reading. Finally, poorer reading comprehension was associated with higher activation of information when it was less relevant following the intervening sentences. Taken together, the current findings demonstrate the manner in which poor regulation of relevant and less relevant information during reading underlies the specific comprehension difficulties experienced by poor comprehenders.

Differential lexical predictors of reading comprehension in fourth graders

The mental lexicon plays a central role in reading comprehension (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014). It encompasses the number of lexical entries in spoken and written language (vocabulary breadth), the semantic quality of these entries (vocabulary depth), and the connection strength between lexical representations (semantic relatedness); as such, it serves as an output for the decoding process and as an input for comprehension processes. Although different aspects of the lexicon can be distinguished, research on the role of the mental lexicon in reading comprehension often does not take these individual aspects of the lexicon into account. The current study used a multicomponent approach to examine whether measures of spoken and written vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and semantic relatedness were differentially predictive of individual differences in reading comprehension skills in fourth-grade students. The results indicated that, in addition to nonverbal reasoning, short-term memory, and word decoding, the four measures of lexical quality substantially added (30 %) to the proportion of explained variance of reading comprehension (adding up to a total proportion of 65 %). Moreover, each individual measure of lexical quality added significantly to the prediction of reading comprehension after all other measures were taken into account, with written lexical breadth and lexical depth showing the greatest increase in explained variance. It can thus be concluded that multiple components of lexical quality play a role in children's reading comprehension.

Comprehending text versus reading words in young readers with varying reading ability: distinct patterns of functional connectivity from common processing hubs

Skilled reading depends on recognizing words efficiently in isolation (word-level processing; WL) and extracting meaning from text (discourse-level processing; DL); deficiencies in either result in poor reading. FMRI has revealed consistent overlapping networks in word and passage reading, as well as unique regions for DL processing; however, less is known about how WL and DL processes interact. Here we examined functional connectivity from seed regions derived from where BOLD signal overlapped during word and passage reading in 38 adolescents ranging in reading ability, hypothesizing that even though certain regions support word- and higher-level language, connectivity patterns from overlapping regions would be task modulated. Results indeed revealed that the left-lateralized semantic and working memory (WM) seed regions showed task-dependent functional connectivity patterns: during DL processes, semantic and WM nodes all correlated with the left angular gyrus, a region implicated in semantic memory/coherence building. In contrast, during WL, these nodes coordinated with a traditional WL area (left occipitotemporal region). In addition, these WL and DL findings were modulated by decoding and comprehension abilities, respectively, with poorer abilities correlating with decreased connectivity. Findings indicate that key regions may uniquely contribute to multiple levels of reading; we speculate that these connectivity patterns may be especially salient for reading outcomes and intervention response.

What component of executive functions contributes to normal and impaired reading comprehension in young adults?

The purpose of this study was two-fold: (a) to examine what component of executive functions (EF) - planning and working memory - predicts reading comprehension in young adults (Study 1), and (b) to examine if less skilled comprehenders experience deficits in the EF components (Study 2). In Study 1, we assessed 178 university students (120 females; mean age=21.82 years) on planning (Planned Connections, Planned Codes, and Planned Patterns), working memory (Listening Span, Digit Span Backward, and Digit Memory), and reading comprehension (Nelson-Denny Reading Test). The results of structural equation modeling indicated that only planning was a significant predictor of reading comprehension. In Study 2, we assessed 30 university students with a specific reading comprehension deficit (19 females; mean age=23.01 years) and 30 controls (18 females; mean age=22.77 years) on planning (Planned Connections and Crack the Code) and working memory (Listening Span and Digit Span Backward). The results showed that less skilled comprehenders performed significantly poorer than controls only in planning. Taken together, the findings of both studies suggest that planning is the preeminent component of EF that is driving its relationship with reading comprehension in young adults.

Magnitude Representation and Working Memory Updating in Children With Arithmetic and Reading Comprehension Disabilities

It has been argued that children with learning disabilities (LD) encounter severe problems in working memory (WM) tasks, especially when they need to update information stored in their WM. It is not clear, however, to what extent this is due to a generally poor updating ability or to a difficulty specific to the domain to be processed. To examine this issue, two groups of children with arithmetic or reading comprehension LD and a group of typically developing children (9 to 10 years old) were assessed using two updating tasks requiring to select the smallest numbers or objects presented. The results showed that children with an arithmetic disability failed in a number updating task, but not in the object updating task. The opposite was true for the group with poor reading comprehension, whose performance was worse in the object than in the number updating task. It may be concluded that the problem of WM updating in children with LD is also due to a poor representation of the material to be updated. In addition, our findings suggest that the mental representation of the size of objects relates to the semantic representation of the objects' properties and differs from the quantitative representation of numbers.

Morphosyntax in Poor Comprehenders

Children described as poor comprehenders (PCs) have reading comprehension difficulties in spite of adequate word reading abilities. PCs are known to display weakness with semantics and higher-level aspects of oral language, but less is known about their grammatical skills, especially with regard to morphosyntax. The purpose of this study was to examine morphosyntax in fourth grade PCs and typically developing readers (TDs), using three experimental tasks involving finiteness marking. Participants also completed standardized, norm-referenced assessments of phonological memory, vocabulary, and broader language skills. PCs displayed weakness relative to TDs on all three morphosyntax tasks and on every other assessment of oral language except phonological memory, as indexed by nonword repetition. These findings help to clarify the linguistic profile of PCs, suggesting that their language weaknesses include grammatical weaknesses that cannot be fully explained by semantic factors. Because finiteness markers are usually mastered prior to formal schooling in typical development, we call for future studies to examine whether assessments of morphosyntax could be used for the early identification of children at risk for future reading comprehension difficulty.

University Students With Poor Reading Comprehension: The Hidden Cognitive Processing Deficit

The present study aimed to examine the nature of the working memory and general cognitive ability deficits experienced by university students with a specific reading comprehension deficit. A total of 32 university students with poor reading comprehension but average word-reading skills and 60 age-matched controls with no comprehension difficulties participated in the study. The participants were assessed on three verbal working memory tasks that varied in terms of their processing demands and on the Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System, which was used to operationalize intelligence. The results indicated first that the differences between poor and skilled comprehenders on working memory were amplified as the processing demands of the tasks increased. In addition, although poor comprehenders as a group had average intelligence, they experienced significant difficulties in simultaneous and successive processing. Considering that working memory and general cognitive ability are highly correlated processes, these findings suggest that the observed differences between poor and skilled comprehenders are likely a result of a deficient information processing system.

Working memory, reading ability and the effects of distance and typicality on anaphor resolution in children

We investigated the time course of anaphor resolution in children and whether this is modulated by individual differences in working memory and reading skill. The eye movements of 30 children (10–11 years) were monitored as they read short paragraphs in which (1) the semantic typicality of an antecedent and (2) its distance in relation to an anaphor were orthogonally manipulated. Children showed effects of distance and typicality on the anaphor itself and also on the word to the right of the anaphor, suggesting that anaphoric processing begins immediately but continues after the eyes have left the anaphor. Furthermore, children showed no evidence of resolving anaphors in the most difficult condition (distant atypical antecedent), suggesting that anaphoric processing that is demanding may not occur online in children of this age. Finally, working memory capacity and reading comprehension skill affect the magnitude and time course of typicality and distance effects during anaphoric processing.

A retrospective longitudinal study of cognitive and language skills in poor reading comprehension

Fifty-six specific poor reading comprehenders (SPRC) were selected in Grade 4 and retrospectively compared to good comprehenders at preschool (age 5) and at the end of kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. The results revealed deficits in vocabulary, grammar, verbal memory and early deficits in phonological awareness in most of the SPRC sample, beginning in preschool. The reading comprehension deficits in children with SPRC were not as marked in earlier assessments in Grade 1 and 2, probably because of the greater dependence on word decoding in reading comprehension in the early grades.