The present article aimed to explore how the development of reading comprehension is affected when its cognitive basis is compromised. The simple view of reading was adopted as the theoretical framework. The study followed 76 children with mild intellectual disabilities (average IQ = 60.38, age 121 months) across a period of 3 years. The children were assessed for level of reading comprehension (outcome variable) and its precursors decoding and listening comprehension, in addition to linguistic skills (foundational literacy skills, rapid naming, phonological short-term memory, verbal working memory, vocabulary, and grammar) and nonlinguistic skills (nonverbal reasoning and temporal processing). Reading comprehension was predicted by decoding and listening comprehension but also by foundational literacy skills and nonverbal reasoning. It is concluded that intellectual disabilities can affect the development of reading comprehension indirectly via linguistic skills but also directly via nonlinguistic nonverbal reasoning ability. According to the simple view of reading, reading comprehension depends on the strength of two core skills: word decoding and listening comprehension (Hoover & Gough, 1990). Their relative contributions to reading comprehension have been found to change over grades (Ouellette & Beers, 2010; Vellutino, Tunmer, Jaccard, & Chen, 2007). Early reading comprehension is limited by what the child is able to decode, and word decoding is the dominant predictor for reading comprehension at this stage. Once word decoding skill is developed sufficiently, the level of reading comprehension will be more strongly linked to the level of listening comprehension (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Landi, Frost, Mencl, Sandak, & Pugh, 2013). It is known that a limited general intelligence can severely affect the acquisition of decoding skill and reading fluency (Lemons et al., 2013), but its influence on the developmental pattern of reading comprehension is far from clear. The role of general cognitive ability in typical populations can be better understood while examining the development of reading comprehension in children with significant limitations in general intelligence. The present article uses a longitudinal design to investigate the development of reading comprehension and its precursors in a group of children with intellectual disabilities. Precursors of reading comprehension Within the simple view framework, longitudinal studies have shown a relationship between linguistic precursors in early primary school and reading comprehension in later primary school (Catts, Herrera, Nielsen, & Bridges, 2015; Muter, Hulme, Snowling, & Stevenson, 2004). To read in an alphabetic language, children must first be aware of the alphabetic principle; they must understand CONTACT Evelien van Wingerden
