Cognitive Constraints on the Simple View of Reading: A Longitudinal Study in Children With Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

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

Do serial order short-term memory and long-term learning abilities predict spelling skills in school-age children?

“…Square transformations were applied in order to normalize these measures (Field, 2005). Furthermore, as all variables have different maximum scores and ranges, we transformed all scores into z-scores (van Wingerden, Segers, van Balkom, & Verhoeven, 2018). In this study, we used a Bayesian approach for all statistical analyses (Dienes, 2011(Dienes, , 2016Wagenmakers, 2007;Wagenmakers, Lee, Lodewyckx, & Iverson, 2008).…”

Early Reading and Writing by Using the Manakok Game as a Manifestation of Basic Literacy

“…Students are also trained to read voices (fluently) simple sentences consisting of 3-5 words with attention to pronunciation and correct intonation, pause (to stop, inhale): long or short pauses, giving emphasis to certain words according to the context, and starting identifying keywords from rather long readings [20]. The target of early reading learning is more directed at the ability to "literate" with the focus of teaching directed at technical reading skills [21].…”

“…Students can read and understand short texts by reading fluently (voicing) and reading aloud a few simple sentences [21], [22]. Reading the beginning that will be done is to get used to the right attitude, read aloud, read voices (fluently), and read the fragments [20], [23].…”

Desempenho no teste de raven: diferenças entre crianças-adolescentes com transtorno do espectro autista e com dificuldades de leitura

“…A tarefa LPI foi normatizada em uma amostra de 419 crianças, com idades entre seis e 12 anos, do 1° ano ao 7° ano do ensino fundamental, de escolas públicas e privadas do Rio Grande do Sul (Salles et al, 2013). Possui evidências de validade de construto (Sbicigo, Piccolo, Lima, & Salles, 2017), com correlações entre fortes e moderadas com os subtestes de leitura, escrita e artimética do Teste de Desempenho Escolar (Stein, 1994), fluência de leitura no nível de palavras e pseudopalavras (Justi & Roazzi, 2012), tarefa de supressão de fonemas (Lopes-Silva, Moura, Júlio-Costa, Haase, & Wood, 2014) e subteste vocabulário da Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence -WASI (The Psychological Corporation, 1999;Trentini, Yates, & Heck, 2014). Além disso, a LPI discriminou o desempenho de crianças conforme a escolaridade, tipo de escola, nível socioeconômico e dificuldades de aprendizagem (Sbicigo, Lima, & Salles, 2017).…”

“…Dessa forma, as habilidades de raciocínio não verbal (como as avaliadas pelo MPCR) podem afetar o desenvolvimento das habilidades de compreensão de leitura (van Wingerden, Segers, van Balkom & Verhoeven, 2018). Testando um modelo de equações estruturais van Wingerden et al (2018) verificaram que as habilidades consideradas fundamentais para alfabetização (consciência fonológica e relação grafema-fonema) juntamente com o raciocínio não verbal (MPCR) exerceram um efeito direto sobre a compreensão de leitura em crianças com leve deficiência intelectual (média de QI=60,38; todas as crianças tinham um QI estimado acima de 50 pontos e pelo menos alguma capacidade de leitura), além de decodificação, compreensão auditiva e compreensão prévia de leitura.…”