Poster #49 - Phonological Processing Contributes Differently to Reading Comprehension in Children With and Without Reading Disability

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Developmental Disabilities

Integrative Statement

Children with reading disabilities (RD) often exhibit difficulties in reading comprehension and thus have problems in understanding what is being read. These problems are attributed to deficits in lower-order reading skills such as reading fluency, but also to deficits in phonological processing skills, which comprise the ability to utilize the sound structure of oral language while processing written language. Yet, how these various skills relate to one another and whether or not their contribution to reading comprehension differs between children with and without RD is an ongoing matter of debate. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to examine (a) which components of phonological processing (i.e., phonological short-term memory, phonological awareness, and rapid automatized naming) best predict various aspects of reading, (b) whether the predictive role of phonological processing differs for children with and without RD, and (c) to what extent reading comprehension in these two groups is accounted for by phonological processing skills beyond the contribution of reading fluency. We hypothesized that reading fluency would mediate the association between phonological processing and reading comprehension in both groups.
Overall, 209 third-graders participated in the study. Of these, 109 were diagnosed with RD (IQ > 85; reading and spelling < 16th percentile; mathematics > 25th percentile) and 100 children met the criteria for the control group (IQ > 85; reading, spelling and mathematics > 25th percentile). All children completed a comprehensive assessment of phonological processing skills at the end of third grade and were assessed in reading fluency (at the beginning of fourth grade) and reading comprehension (at the end of fourth grade) with standardized school achievement tests.
Multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) yielded two important findings: For children of the CG, differences in reading comprehension were best captured by the capacity of phonological short-term memory. In children with RD, however, phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming, but not phonological short-term memory, significantly contributed to the performance in reading comprehension. Next, reading fluency was added as a mediator in the model to examine whether the relationship between phonological processing and reading comprehension was fully mediated by lower-order reading skill (i.e., reading fluency). In fact, full mediation was revealed in both groups. Yet, while in the RD group 78% of the variance in reading comprehension was accounted for by the model, only 39% of the variance in the control group’s reading comprehension was explained by the predictors. This result suggests that reading fluency is a major building block and an essential prerequisite for reading comprehension in RD, whereas other factors beyond reading fluency contribute to reading comprehension of normally achieving children. In conclusion, the study highlights that children with RD draw on different phonological processing skills when deriving meaning from reading than children without RD.

Authors

• Janin Brandenburg, German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF)
  Presenting Author

• Sina Simone Huschka, German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gerhard Büttner, Goethe University Frankfurt
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marcus Hasselhorn, German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF)
  Non-Presenting Author