This article presents findings from the Children's Test of Nonword Repetition (CNRep). Normative data based on its administration to over 600 children aged between four and nine years are reported. Close developmental links are established between CNRep scores and vocabulary, reading, and comprehensive skills in children during the early school years. The links between nonword repetition and language skills are shown to be consistently higher and more specific than those obtained between language skills and another simple verbal task with a significant phonological memory component, auditory digit span. The psychological mechanisms underpinning these distinctive developmental relationships between nonword repetition and language development are considered.

The nature of the developmental association between phonological memory and vocabulary knowledge was explored in a longitudinal study. At each of 4 waves (at ages 4,5,6, and 8 years), measures of vocabulary, phonological memory, nonverbal intelligence, and reading were taken from 80 children. Comparisons of cross-lagged partial correlations revealed a significant shift in the causal underpinnings of the relationship between phonological memory and vocabulary development before and after 5 years of age. Between 4 and 5 years, phonological memory skills appeared to exert a direct causal influence on vocabulary acquisition. Subsequently, though, vocabulary knowledge became the major pacemaker in the developmental relationship, with the earlier influence of phonological memory on vocabulary development subsiding to a nonsignificant level.

This study investigated associations between working memory (measured by complex memory tasks) and both reading and mathematics abilities, as well as the possible mediating factors of Xuid intelligence, verbal abilities, short-term memory (STM), and phonological awareness, in a sample of 46 6- to 11-year-olds with reading disabilities. As a whole, the sample was characterized by deWcits in complex memory and visuospatial STM and by low IQ scores; language, phonological STM, and phonological awareness abilities fell in the low average range. Severity of reading diYculties within the sample was signiWcantly associated with complex memory, language, and phonological awareness abilities, whereas poor mathematics abilities were linked with complex memory, phonological STM, and phonological awareness scores. These Wndings suggest that working memory skills indexed by complex memory tasks represent an important constraint on the acquisition of skill and knowledge in reading and mathematics. Possible mechanisms for the contribution of working memory to learning, and the implications for educational practice, are considered

The aim of this study was to investigate the functional organisation of working memory and related cognitive abilities in young children. A sample of 633 children aged between 4 and 6 years were tested on measures of verbal short-term memory, complex memory span, sentence repetition, phonological awareness, and nonverbal ability. The measurement model that provided the best fit of the data incorporates constructs that correspond to the central executive, phonological loop, and episodic buffer subcomponents of working memory, plus distinct but associated constructs associated with phonological awareness and nonverbal ability.

It has recently been suggested that the developmental association between nonword repetition performance and vocabulary knowledge reflects the contribution of phonological memory processes to vocabulary acquisition (e.g., Gathercole & Baddeley, 1989). An alternative account of the association is that the child uses existing vocabulary knowledge to support memory for nonwords. The present article tests between these two alternative accounts by evaluating the role of phonological memory and linguistic factors in nonword repetition. In a longitudinal database, repetition accuracy in 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds was found to be sensitive to two independent factors: a phonological memory factor, nonword length, and a linguistic factor, wordlikeness. To explain these combined influences, it is suggested that repeating nonwords involves temporary phonological memory storage which may be supported by either a specific lexical analogy or by an appropriate abstract phonological frame generated from structurally similar vocabulary items.

This study investigates whether working memory skills of children are related to teacher ratings of their progress towards learning goals at the time of school entry, at 4 or 5 years of age. A sample of 194 children was tested on measures of working memory, phonological awareness, and non-verbal ability, in addition to the school-based baseline assessments in the areas of reading, writing, mathematics, speaking and listening, and personal and social development. Various aspects of cognitive functioning formed unique associations with baseline assessments; for example complex memory span with rated writing skills, phonological short-term memory with both reading and speaking and listening skills, and sentence repetition scores with both mathematics and personal and social skills. Rated reading skills were also uniquely associated with phonological awareness scores. The findings indicate that the capacity to store and process material over short periods of time, referred to as working memory, and also the awareness of phonological structure, may play a crucial role in key learning areas for children at the beginning of formal education.From 1998 to 2002, all state primary schools in England assessed children's abilities as they entered full-time education at 4 or 5 years of age. Each local educational authority was responsible for administering an accredited baseline assessment scheme that measured the children's progress towards early learning goals in domains such as language, literacy, mathematics, and physical and creative development (School Curriculum and Assessment Authority/The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 1997).The aim of the present study was to relate these early indicators of children's skills in key scholastic domains to working memory abilities. Recent work has established close

A study of 4-and 5-year-old children investigated whether measures of phonological * Requests for reprints. 15-2Note. All ages are shown in years: months.Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices. British Picture Vocabulary Scale.' British Abilities Scales.Pbonologicd memory. Two phonological memory tests were given to each child. The first test involved the repetition of non-words. A corpus of 40 non-words was used, consisting of 10 non-words at each of four syllable lengthstwo syllables, three syllables, four syllables and five syllables. The non-words for the three shortest lengths were taken from the corpus constructed for the purposes of our earlier longitudinal study, and 10 further five-syllable non-words were constructed by the same principles (see Gathercole & Baddeley, 1989, and Gathercole et d, 1991, for further details of these materials).Lengthier non-words were included in the present study in order to make the test sufficiently demanding for the older age group.

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