Influence of Verbal Working Memory Depends on Vocabulary: Oral Reading Fluency in Adolescents With Dyslexia

Abstract

Most research on dyslexia to date has focused on early childhood, while comparatively little is known about the nature of dyslexia in adolescence. The current study had two objectives. The first was to investigate the relative contributions of several cognitive and linguistic factors to connected‐text oral reading fluency in a sample of adolescents with dyslexia (n = 77). The second was to test the hypothesis that the effect of verbal working memory on connected‐text oral reading fluency is moderated by word‐level skills and/or vocabulary knowledge. The results suggest that many deficits associated with childhood dyslexia remain prominent in adolescence, but the nature of the relationships between key cognitive and linguistic predictors (i.e., word‐level reading, vocabulary, verbal working memory) and reading fluency appear to be different in adolescence. For example, while word‐level skills remain a significant predictor, the strength of the effect is relatively weak. In contrast, the data support an increased role for vocabulary and verbal working memory, including an interaction between these factors. The presence of an interaction can be interpreted as evidence that the influence of verbal working memory on connected‐text oral reading fluency in adolescents with dyslexia depends on individual differences in vocabulary knowledge. These results offer support for the changing nature of dyslexia across development, and suggest that researchers should study dyslexia in adolescents on its own terms, rather than treating it as an extension of reading problems in early childhood.

Do Students with Dyslexia Have a Different Personality Profile as Measured with the Big Five?

“…Adults with dyslexia have been reported to experience (working) memory problems [4], attentional deficits [5], reduced processing speed [2], problems with fast word finding and arithmetic [6]–[7], and less elaborated vocabulary skills [8]. Dyslexia has also been associated with less sophisticated study strategies and metacognitive skills [9]–[10], higher anxiety, lower self-esteem, problems with coping, and deficient academic achievement and motivation throughout the life-span [11]–[13].…”

Socio-emotional and cognitive resilience in children with reading disabilities

“…Other studies have similarly found that children with RD can rely on morphological structure to decode words faster, despite decoding difficulties [38,39]. Vocabulary skills have also been implicated as a compensatory mechanism for college students with RD [40], and have been shown to mediate between impaired verbal working memory and oral reading fluency in adolescents with RD [41]. More superior verbal reasoning skills in general have been shown to explain higher reading, spelling, morphological, and syntactic skills in students with RD [42].…”

Evidence-Based Reading and Writing Assessment for Dyslexia in Adolescents and Young Adults

“…Poor reading comprehension in high school students may result from weak decoding, vocabulary, and/or listening comprehension skills (Braze, Tabor, Shankweiler, & Mencl, 2007). Deficits in vocabulary and working memory that underlie childhood dyslexia may still be present in adolescents with SLDs, but word level skills may become a weaker predictor (Rose & Rouhani, 2012). …”