Developmental patterns of relationships between inhibitory control and reading skill in early-school children

Abstract

Inhibitory control is one of the most important components of executive functions, which allows to suppress or regulate prepotent attentional or behavioral responses. It was proved to be a crucial factor for school achievement, including math abilities and reading acquisition. In the present cross-sectional study Ober's assumptions about the developmental patterns of relationships between inhibitory control and reading skill were examined. The sample consisted of 256 grade 1-3 primary school children. Decoding and comprehension, the two subcomponents of reading skill, were assessed using Prolexia Test, while cognitive inhibitory control was measured with the Color Word Stroop Task. Simple correlation analyses showed that comprehension ability was related to inhibitory control but only among boys from 1st and 2nd grades (but not among 3rd graders), and no relations between reading subcomponents and inhibitory control were found among girls. However, hierarchical regression analyses controlling for other reading subcomponent did not yield a significant effect of interaction. Instead, it was found that inhibitory control was related to reading only in the 1st graders. Also, some gender differences between 1st and 2nd graders in their reading ability were observed. Those findings suggest that although gender plays a significant role in reading skill development of early school children, it does not moderate the developmental links between inhibitory control and reading skill.

Impact of a cognitive stimulation program on the reading comprehension of children in primary education

“…Furthermore, poor performance in reading processes has been linked to poor academic performance, ultimately being a potential cause of school failure. This scientific tradition continues nowadays, with numerous current studies demonstrating a close link between the comprehension of written texts and executive functions, specifically focusing on the decoding and recognition of words (Gough and Tunmer, 1986;Kamza, 2017;Nouwens et al, 2020;Ober et al, 2020). The cognitive operations necessary for the interpretation of the words' meaning and function within the sentence, as well as the final understanding of the text, are mediated and influenced by the readers' executive functions (Masson and Miller, 1983;Swanson, 1993Swanson, , 1999Swanson and Berninger, 1995;Piotrowska and Willis, 2019;Papadopoulos et al, 2020).…”

“…Inhibitory control, another of the principal executive functions often linked to working memory (Miyake et al, 2000;Clair-Thompson and Gathercole, 2006;Diamond, 2013), has also been associated with phonological awareness and reading comprehension (Juhasz et al, 2003;Pylkkänen et al, 2004;McClelland et al, 2007;Conners, 2009). It is necessary to inhibit and discard the irrelevant information of the text that is being read to reach a global understanding of it (Weerdt et al, 2013;Iglesias-Sarmiento et al, 2015;Kamza, 2017;Lonigan et al, 2017).…”

A Systematic Literature Review of the Impact of Cognitive Stimulation Programs on Reading Skills in Children Aged between 6 and 12 Years Old

“…Thus, inhibitory control contributes to the development of other complex processes, such as reasoning, attentional capacity, planning, or problem-solving [12,14].…”

“…Similarly, the components of inhibitory control and attention are responsible for focusing on the letters appearing in the text, inhibiting irrelevant information from the text and from the reader's immediate environment, so that proficient reading accuracy and final text comprehension can be achieved [14,[81][82][83][84][85][86].…”