Direct and indirect effects of executive function on reading comprehension in young adults

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine what components of executive function (EF)inhibition, shifting and updating/working memorypredict reading comprehension in young adults. Ninety university students (65 females, 25 males; mean age = 21.82 years) were assessed on shifting (Planned Connections and Colour/Shape Shifting), inhibition (Colour-Word Stroop and Number Stroop), updating/working memory (Digit Memory and Listening Span), reading fluency (Word Reading Efficiency), vocabulary (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test), and reading comprehension (Nelson-Denny Reading Test). The results of path analysis indicated that only shifting predicted directly reading comprehension. These findings extend those of previous studies showing that different EF components predict different reading outcomes and suggest that EF has a place in reading comprehension models over and above traditional predictors of reading comprehension such as reading fluency and vocabulary.

How executive functions contribute to reading comprehension

“…Finally, planning can be seen as the ability to decide which actions are necessary to efficiently reach and complete a goal (Cartwright, 2009), and has been shown to significantly account for variation in reading comprehension, after controlling for decoding, language skills, and working memory in 9-to 15-year-olds (Cutting et al, 2009;Sesma et al, 2009). Similarly, Georgiou and Das (2018) demonstrated a contribution of planning to reading comprehension in young adults (M = 21.82 year). It has been proposed that good planners regularly monitor whether their text representations are correct and if not, may even change strategies, to achieve a correct understanding of the text (Cartwright, 2015).…”

“…To our knowledge, only a few studies have examined both direct and indirect effects of executive functions on reading comprehension via decoding or language skills. These include studies with adults (Follmer & Sperling, 2019;Georgiou & Das, 2018), young adolescents (Ober et al, 2019), and children (Kieffer et al, 2013). However, the results across these studies vary, which may be explained by several factors.…”

“…The significant relation between executive functions and reading comprehension has been demonstrated repeatedly (for a review, see Butterfuss & Kendeou, 2018;Follmer, 2018;Jacob & Parkinson, 2015). However, indirect effects of executive functions on reading comprehension via decoding and language skills have hardly been examined (Follmer & Sperling, 2019;Georgiou & Das, 2018;Ober, Brooks, Plass, & Homer, 2019), and studies including children in the upper primary grades (grades 4-6; children between the ages of 10-12 years) are even scarcer (Kieffer et al, 2013). Moreover, although several longitudinal studies regarding the relations between executive functions and early literacy have been conducted (e.g., Blair & Razza, 2007;De Franchis, Usai, Viterbori, & Traverso, 2017;Monette, Bigras, & Guay, 2011;R€ othlisberger, Neuenschwander, Cimeli, & Roebers, 2013), studies applying a longitudinal approach in the upper primary grades are limited.…”

Different Subcomponents of Executive Functioning Predict Different Growth Parameters in Mathematics: Evidence From a 4-Year Longitudinal Study With Chinese Children

“…Second, most previous studies examining the contribution of inhibition and shifting to mathematics skills have administered speeded measures of both, without controlling for the effects of speed of processing. As van der Sluis et al (2007) , and more recently Georgiou and Das (2018) have indicated, in this kind of studies unless researchers control for speed of processing we do not know if the effects of EF on mathematics are driven by their executive processing demands or by speed. Most of the EF tasks, especially the inhibition and shifting tasks, are speeded because of ceiling effects in accuracy (e.g., Anderson, 2002 ; Lee et al, 2012 ).…”

Psychometric Models of Individual Differences in Reading Comprehension: A Reanalysis of Freed, Hamilton, and Long (2017)

“…general mechanisms involved in reading comprehension: reasoning (Siddiqui et al, 1998;Schatschneider et al, 2007;Tiu et al, 2003), working memory capacity (Just & Carpenter, 1992;McVay & Kane, 2012, Unsworth & McMillan, 2013, perceptual/processing speed (Caplan et al, 2011;Joshi & Aaron, 2000;Payne & Stine-Morrow, 2014), and inhibition (Arrington et al, 2014;Georgiou & Das, 2018;Kieffer et al, 2013). Additionally, many domain-specific influences have been identified: verbal fluency (Jenkins et al, 2003;Silverman et al, 2012;Speece et al, 2010), word decoding (Cutting & Scarborough, 2006;Landi, 2010;Macaruso & Shankweiler, 2010), and previous language experience (Braze et al, 2016;Cromley et al, 2010;MacDonald & Christiansen, 2002).…”