Boys-Specific Text-Comprehension Enhancement With Dual Visual-Auditory Text Presentation Among 12–14 Years-Old Students

Abstract

Quality of language comprehension determines performance in all kinds of activities including academics. Processing of words initially develops as auditory, and gradually extends to visual as children learn to read. School failure is highly related to listening and reading comprehension problems. In this study we analyzed sex-differences in comprehension of texts in Spanish (standardized reading test PROLEC-R) in three modalities (visual, auditory, and both simultaneously: dual-modality) presented to 12–14-years old students, native in Spanish. We controlled relevant cognitive variables such as attention (d2), phonological and semantic fluency (FAS) and speed of processing (WISC subtest Coding). Girls’ comprehension was similar in the three modalities of presentation, however boys were importantly benefited by dual-modality as compared to boys exposed only to visual or auditory text presentation. With respect to the relation of text comprehension and school performance, students with low grades in Spanish showed low auditory comprehension. Interestingly, visual and dual modalities preserved comprehension levels in these low skilled students. Our results suggest that the use of visual-text support during auditory language presentation could be beneficial for low school performance students, especially boys, and encourage future research to evaluate the implementation in classes of the rapidly developing technology of simultaneous speech transcription, that could be, in addition, beneficial to non-native students, especially those recently incorporated into school or newly arrived in a country from abroad.

El profesorado, eje fundamental de la transformación de la docencia universitaria

“…Recientemente, hemos reportado que la modalidad dual incrementa considerablemente la comprensión lectora en niños varones de 12 años que no presentan especiales dificultades (Alvarez-Alonso, de-la-Peña, Ortega & Scott, 2021). Los factores del efecto de la modalidad de presentación de un texto se relacionan con la diversidad de los niveles educativos estudiados, la edad, el desempeño de las funciones ejecutivas, el tipo de tarea y la variabilidad de los niveles de dificultad.…”