Varieties of Cognitive Profiles in Poor Readers: Evidence for a VAS-Impaired Subtype

Abstract

A wide share of secondary school children does not reach the expected competence level in reading. These children could benefit from more efficient intervention responses, providing a better understanding of their cognitive weaknesses/deficits. Our aim was to explore the cognitive heterogeneity of a population of poor readers identified from a large sample of 948 sixth-grade children. We first assessed the contribution of phoneme awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), and visual attention span (VAS) to reading performance in a subset of 281 children including poor and average readers/spellers. We show that all three skills are unique and significant predictors of reading fluency. We then restricted the analysis to participants with normal Raven’s score (IQ) and oral language skills to focus on 110 children with more specific reading difficulties. A unique VAS deficit was found in 18% of these poor readers while 20% and 15.5% showed a unique PA or RAN deficit. Children with multiple or no deficit were further identified. The overall findings provide evidence for a variety of cognitive profiles in poor readers. They suggest that, in addition to PA interventions, training programs targeting VAS might be useful for the nontrivial share of poor readers who exhibit a VAS deficit.

What Is Going on with Visual Attention in Reading and Dyslexia? A Critical Review of Recent Studies

“…They found 31% of their sample had a VAS weakness and 63% and 60% had RAN and PA weaknesses, respectively. This is similar to the pattern found in terms of the amount of variance that is accounted for by these factors in other studies (i.e., RAN and PA account for more than VAS), although it differs slightly to the deficit results found by Valdois et al [ 5 ] in French.…”

“…Another reason visual attention tests may be useful is if they can predict not just learning effects but deficits in disordered groups. Valdois et al [ 5 ] examined this with French children using a sample of 279 French 6th-graders. They found that VAS explained 6%, 8%, and 6% of the variance above RAN, PA, and other controls in single word, pseudoword, and text reading, respectively, whereas RAN and PA together contributed 20%, 31%, and 20% on the same tasks.…”

“…Stefanac et al [ 41 ] also used a design that was uncommon in the studies we examined, combining results from different types of words to form a new dependent variable. This gave them an idea of lexical profiles, which is theoretically justifiable based on all major reading models (note that Valdois et al [ 5 ] also used lexical profiles calculated in quite a different way, but found they had no significant effect). To achieve this, they measured the error rate of regular words, irregular words, and pseudowords, a distinction of historical importance [ 10 , 42 ].…”

“…Notably, it is very well established that different types of deficits in reading are significantly correlated [ 4 ], even if they might seem conceptually separate (e.g., visual and phonological deficits). This includes data from large samples [ 4 , 5 ]. These correlations are important because without control variables being run concurrently, it makes the possible causal component of some tasks difficult to ascertain (e.g., the visual attention part of a visual attention task).…”

Direct and Indirect Effects of Blood Levels of Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fatty Acids on Reading and Writing (Dis)Abilities

“…Over the last few decades, indeed, deficits in reading were shown to be associated with phonological processing [ 5 , 6 ] and perceptual or visuo-attentional mechanisms [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]. Some children with DD are unable to focus their visual attention normally or to elaborate the spatial relationships of visual information in a specific region of space [ 11 , 12 ].…”