Working memory in skilled and less skilled readers

Swanson, H. Lee; Cochran, Kathryn F.; Ewers, Cynthia A.

doi:10.1007/bf00913790

Cited by 67 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…This issue concerns the more general problem of how to test working memory in young children. This remains a matter of debate (Rohl & Pratt, 1995;Swanson, Cochran, & Ewers, 1989). All things considered and for lack of a better measure, we found the listening span task generally satisfactory.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

Contribution of Working Memory Capacity to Children’s Reading Comprehension: A Longitudinal Investigation

2005

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We examined the contribution of working memory capacity to the development of children's reading comprehension. We present data from three waves of a longitudinal study when the children were 7 years (Grade 1), 8 years (Grade 2) and 9 years (Grade 3). Two questions were raised: The first question concerned the developmental changes of the relative contribution of working memory in predicting reading comprehension compared to vocabulary and decoding skills. The second question explored to what extent reading comprehension could be predicted by working memory capacity measured at a prior time. At the end of each grade, reading comprehension, nonword reading, vocabulary knowledge and working memory capacity were assessed. To test the first question, the predictive power of working memory capacity was compared to vocabulary and decoding skills by performing concurrent multiple-regression analyses in each grade. The results showed that working memory capacity emerged as a direct predictor of reading comprehension in Grade 3. To address the second question, we performed multiple-regression analyses predicting reading comprehension from working memory, nonword reading, and vocabulary measured at a prior time. In these analyses, the autoregressive effect was taken into account to separately assess the unique contribution of each predictor to the development of later reading comprehension. The results showed that Grade 1 vocabulary and Grade 2 working memory had additional effects on Grade 3 reading comprehension after the autoregressive effect of reading comprehension had been accounted for. These findings support the idea that, as word recognition becomes automated throughout the early grade levels, working memory becomes an important determinant of reading comprehension. There is also evidence that working memory capacity directly influences the development of reading comprehension skills. The direction of the causal flow is discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

Contribution of Working Memory Capacity to Children’s Reading Comprehension: A Longitudinal Investigation

2005

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“…With regard to working Executive Functions and Dyslexia memory which may be the most extensively studied aspect of executive functioning in children with dyslexia, a number of studies have demonstrated (Baddeley, 1982;Barnea et al, 1994;Brady et al, 1983;Brady et al, 1987;Breznitz, 1997;Chiappe et al, 2000;Hulme & Mackenzie, 1992;Jorm, 1979;Poblano et al, 2000;Swanson et al, 1989;Torgesen, 1977;Vargo et al, 1995;Willcutt et al, 2001) that verbal working memory in children with dyslexia is disturbed in comparison to non-dyslexic children. The results of the present study also indicate that children with dyslexia display impairments in tasks measuring verbal and figural working memory.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Executive functions in children with dyslexia

2004

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There is little data available concerning the executive functions of children with dyslexia. The small number of existing studies in this field focus on single aspects of these functions such as working memory. The aim of the present study was therefore to assess a variety of aspects of executive functioning in children with dyslexia. Forty-two children with dyslexia and 42 non-dyslexic children were examined using a neuropsychological test battery. The test battery consisted of standardised tests examining the assessment of working memory, concept formation, inhibition, flexibility, problem solving and fluency functions. Comparison between the test performance of non-dyslexic children and children with dyslexia revealed obvious difficulties of children with dyslexia in tests measuring working memory. Inhibition of inappropriate reactions was impaired in children with dyslexia in more demanding tests, but not in simple ones. Furthermore, children with dyslexia displayed impairments of both verbal and figural fluency functions. While in comparison to non-dyslexic children no disturbances of concept formation were observed, problem solving seemed to be partially impaired. The present findings suggest that children with dyslexia demonstrate impairments in a variety of executive functions. This should be considered in the development of new concepts in the treatment of dyslexia.

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“…To assess working memory capacity, an adaptation of the Sentence Span Task (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980; Swanson, 1994; Swanson, Cochran, & Ewers, 1989) was administered. In this task, participants were asked to read aloud groups of unrelated sentences (7–10 words in length).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How do children deal with inconsistencies in text? An eye fixation and self-paced reading study in good and poor reading comprehenders

2011

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In two experiments, we investigated comprehension monitoring in 10–12 years old children differing in reading comprehension skill. The children’s self-paced reading times (Experiment 1) and eye fixations and regressions (Experiment 2) were measured as they read narrative texts in which an action of the protagonist was consistent or inconsistent with a description of the protagonist’s character given earlier. The character description and action were adjacent (local condition) or separated by a long filler paragraph (global condition). The self-paced reading data (Experiment 1), the initial reading and rereading data (Experiment 2), together with the comprehension question data (both experiments), are discussed within the situation model framework and suggest that poor comprehenders find difficulty in constructing a richly elaborated situation model. Poor comprehenders presumably fail to represent character information in the model as a consequence of which they are not able to detect inconsistencies in the global condition (in which the character information is lost from working memory). The patterns of results rule out an explanation in terms of impaired situation model updating ability.

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Working memory in skilled and less skilled readers

Cited by 67 publications

References 14 publications

Contribution of Working Memory Capacity to Children’s Reading Comprehension: A Longitudinal Investigation

Contribution of Working Memory Capacity to Children’s Reading Comprehension: A Longitudinal Investigation

Executive functions in children with dyslexia

How do children deal with inconsistencies in text? An eye fixation and self-paced reading study in good and poor reading comprehenders

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