Syntactic awareness has been linked to word reading and reading comprehension. The predictive power of two syntactic awareness tasks (grammatical correction, word-order correction) for both aspects ...of reading was explored in 8- and 10-year-olds. The relative contributions of vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and memory to each were assessed. After vocabulary, memory explained variance on the word-order correction task; in contrast, grammatical knowledge explained performance on the grammatical correction task. The relation between syntactic awareness and reading comprehension was mediated by vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and memory; in contrast, word reading and syntactic awareness shared unique variance not explained by these controls. The implications for how we measure syntactic awareness and its relation with reading ability are discussed.
We examined the influence of the lexical and grammatical aspect of events on pronoun resolution in adults (18 to 23 years, N = 46), adolescents (13 to 14 years, N=66) and children (7 to 11 years, ...N=192). Participants were presented with 64 two-sentence stimuli: the first sentence described events with two same gender protagonists; the second began with a personal pronoun and described a status that could be attributed to either protagonist. Participants recorded to whom the pronoun referred, in a booklet. For all groups, Subject resolutions were more likely for events (a) without endpoints relative to those with endpoints, and (b) described as ongoing rather than completed, but this latter influence was restricted to events with endpoints for adults and adolescents. The findings provide support for the Event Structure Hypothesis of pronoun resolution (Rohde, Kehler & Elman, 2006) and provide new insights into the development of pronoun resolution.
Background. Children with fluent and accurate word reading in the presence of poor text comprehension are impaired on a wide range of reading‐related tasks.
Aims. This study investigated the ...consistency of skill impairment in a sample of poor comprehenders to identify any fundamental skill weakness that (i) might be associated with poor text comprehension, and (ii) might lead to depressed reading development. An additional aim was to determine whether reading comprehension difficulties are associated with more general educational difficulties.
Sample. Twenty‐three poor comprehenders and 23 good comprehenders with age‐appropriate word reading accuracy were assessed when aged 8 years. Concurrent reading and language performance and reading, educational attainment and reasoning skills 3 years later are reported.
Methods. The following skills were assessed when aged 8 years: word reading, text comprehension, vocabulary, syntax, cognitive ability, working memory, comprehension subskills. Listening comprehension, SAT scores and reasoning scores at 11 years are also reported.
Results. There was no evidence for any fundamental skill weaknesses in the population of poor comprehenders at Time 1. However, poor vocabulary skills led to impaired growth in word reading ability and poor general cognitive ability led to impaired growth in comprehension. Poor comprehenders obtained lower SAT scores than did the good comprehenders at 11 years.
Conclusions. These findings indicate that a single underlying source of poor comprehension is unlikely. Poor comprehenders are at risk of generally poor educational attainment, although weak verbal or cognitive skills appear to affect the reading development of poor comprehenders in different ways.
Background and aims
Children with autism spectrum condition often have specific difficulties with narrative comprehension, a skill which has a strong association with both concurrent and longitudinal ...reading comprehension. A better understanding of narrative comprehension skills in autism spectrum condition has the potential to provide insight into potential later reading comprehension difficulties and inform early targeted intervention. In the current study, the main objective was to investigate how differences in the medium of story presentation (paper-book vs. e-book) and differences in story narration (adult narration vs. in-app narration) would influence narrative comprehension in general, and between groups (autism spectrum condition and a receptive language-matched control group). We were also interested in how task engagement (visual attention and communication) differed between group and conditions and whether task engagement was related to narrative comprehension.
Method
Forty-two children with autism spectrum condition and 42 typically developing children were read a story either via a paper-book or an e-book with interactive and multimedia features. The e-book was either narrated by the experimenter (adult narrated iPad condition) or narrated by an in-app voiceover (e-book narrated iPad condition). Children’s behaviour during storybook reading was video recorded and coded for engagement (visual attention and communication). They then completed two measures of narrative comprehension: multiple-choice questions (measuring recall of literal information) and a picture ordering task (measuring global story structure).
Results
Contrary to predictions, we did not find any significant group or condition differences on either measure of narrative comprehension, and both groups demonstrated a similar level of narrative comprehension across the three conditions. We found differences in engagement between conditions for both groups, with greater visual attention in the e-book conditions compared to the paper-book condition. However, visual attention only significantly correlated with narrative comprehension for the typically developing group.
Conclusion
Overall, this study suggests that children with autism spectrum condition are just as able as language-matched peers to comprehend a narrative from storybooks. Presenting a story on an iPad e-book compared to a paper-book does not influence narrative comprehension, nor does adult narration of the story compared to in-app narration. However, on-task engagement is linked to narrative comprehension in typically developing children.
Implications: Taken together, our findings suggest that e-books may be more successful than paper-based mediums at encouraging visual attention towards the story, but no better at supporting narrative comprehension and eliciting communication.
This study examined the effect of prompts on the shared reading interactions of parents and young children with Down syndrome. Eight parents and their children with Down syndrome (aged 4 years, ...7 months to 6 years, 9 months) were recorded reading two books together, one of which included 12 question prompts which parents were instructed to ask their child during reading. Though there was considerable variability, parents and children engaged in significantly more extra-textual talk when reading books with embedded prompts than during typical reading. In addition, children showed greater participation and produced significantly more words and a greater range of words, when reading books with embedded prompts. Prompts had no effect on the complexity of child language. Embedded prompts significantly enhanced the interactions that occurred between parents and young children with Down syndrome during shared book reading and created more opportunities for parents to support their child's language development. Though further studies are needed, the findings reported here have potentially important implications for the development of shared reading interventions to support language development in young children with Down syndrome.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background
Reading and listening comprehension are essential for accessing the school curriculum. Inference‐making is integral to successful comprehension and involves integrating information between ...clauses (local coherence) and integrating information with background knowledge (global coherence). We require appropriate methods to assess comprehension and inference‐making in order to identify areas of difficulty and provide appropriate support.
Aims
Typically developing children's ability to generate local and global coherence inferences was assessed. The effect of text modality (reading and listening comprehension) and presentation format (stories presented in segmented and whole story format) was explored using two comprehension measures (question answering and story retell). The main aims were to determine whether there were advantages for reading or listening comprehension and for segmented or whole text presentation.
Methods & Procedures
Typically developing children in Year 3 (n = 33) and Year 5 (n = 40) either read or listened to short stories. Their ability to generate global and local coherence inferences was assessed in two ways: answers to inference‐tapping questions and story retelling (scored for inclusion of necessary inferences). Stories were presented in either a whole format (all questions after the story) or a segmented format (questions asked at specific points during story presentation); the retelling was always after the complete story and questions had been presented.
Outcomes & Results
For both comprehension measures, there was developmental progression between age groups and a benefit for the reading modality. Scores were higher for global coherence than local coherence inferences, but the effect was significant only for the question‐answering responses, not retells. For retells there was a benefit in presenting the text as a whole compared with the segmented format, but this effect was not present for the comprehension questions. There was a significant interaction between inference type and modality for both comprehension measures (question answering and story retell): for the local coherence inferences scores were significantly greater in the reading compared with the listening modality, but performance on the global coherence inferences did not differ significantly between modalities.
Conclusions & Implications
Clinicians, teachers and other professionals should consider the modality and presentation format for comprehension tasks to utilize areas of strength and support areas of difficulty. Oral presentation may result in poorer comprehension relative to written presentation in general, and may particularly affect local integrative processing. These findings have important implications for the development of appropriate assessments as well as for supporting children with comprehension difficulties.
What this paper adds
What is already known on the subject
Reading and listening comprehension are critical for accessing the school curriculum and educational success. Inference‐making is integral to successful comprehension and involves integrating information between clauses (local coherence) as well as integrating information with background knowledge (global coherence). Children have an awareness of the need to generate coherence inferences, but not all children will generate sufficient coherence inferences for adequate comprehension during text presentation. Existing assessment tools measure comprehension by asking questions after story presentation. This provides an overall indication of comprehension or inference‐making ability and can identify children with comprehension or language and communication difficulties.
What this paper adds to existing knowledge
The study compared coherence inference‐making in two presentation conditions: whole format (all questions after the story) or segmented format (questions asked at specific points during story presentation). Children (aged 7–10 years) were assessed in the reading or listening modality. Two comprehension measures were used (inference‐tapping questions and story retell). There was developmental progression and a benefit for the reading modality for both comprehension measures. Scores were higher for global coherence than local coherence inferences for the comprehension questions. There was a benefit in presenting the text as a whole compared with the segmented format for story retells.
What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?
The results are important for clinicians and other professionals assessing and supporting comprehension skills. The results suggest that the modality and presentation format of comprehension tasks should be considered to utilize areas of strength and support areas of difficulty. The optimum form of input and structure may depend on a child's individual profile and the skill being assessed or supported. Targeted questions may identify a child's potential to generate an inference. This may assist identification of children who may require more targeted or specialist intervention. The reading modality may provide a means of support for development of verbal comprehension.
The focus of this study is the identification of reader profiles that differ in performance and progression in an educational literacy app. A total of 19,830 students in Grade 2 from 347 Elementary ...schools located in 30 different districts in the United States played the app from 2020 to 2021. Our aim was to identify unique groups of readers using an unsupervised statistical learning technique - cluster analysis. Six indicators generated from the students’ log files were included to provide insights into engagement and learning across four different reading-related skills: phonological awareness, early decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension processes. A key aim was to evaluate the implementation and performance of Gaussian mixture models, k-means, k-medoids, clustering large applications and hierarchical clustering, alongside provision of detailed guidance that can benefit researchers in the field. K-means algorithm performed the best and identified nine groups of readers. Children with low initial reading ability showed greater engagement with code-related games (phonological awareness, early decoding) and took longer to master these games, whereas children with higher initial ability showed more engagement with meaning-related games (vocabulary, comprehension processes). Our findings can inform further research that aims to understand individual differences in learning behaviour within digital environments both over time and across various cohorts of children.
•K-means performed best for clustering user engagement data.•Nine distinct groups of engagement were identified.•Engagement in a digital reading app was related to progress and reading outcomes.•Patterns in initial ability were related to engagement and performance in the app.•Patterns in engagement and progress were aligned with the app's architecture.
Abstract
Background and aims
Children with autism spectrum condition often have specific difficulties understanding that pictorial symbols refer to real-world objects in the environment. We ...investigated the influence of labelling on the symbolic understanding and dual representation of children with autism spectrum condition.
Methods
Children with autism spectrum condition and typically developing children were shown four coloured photographs of objects that had different functions across four separate trials. The participants were given either a novel label alongside a description of the object’s function or a description of the object’s function without a label. Children were then given 30 seconds to interact with an array of stimuli (pictures and objects) in a mapping test and in a generalisation test for each trial. This exploration phase allowed for spontaneous word–picture–referent mapping through free-play, providing an implicit measure of symbolic understanding.
Results
We found no significant difference in word–picture–referent mapping between groups and conditions. Both groups more often performed the described action on the target object in the exploration phase regardless of condition.
Conclusions and implications
Our results suggest that a spontaneous measure of symbolic understanding (such as free-play) may reveal competencies in word–picture–referent mapping in autism spectrum condition.
Background
Children with diagnoses of attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) frequently have reading problems. To date, it is not clear whether poor reading is associated with both ...inattention and hyperactivity and also whether poor reading comprehension is the result of poor word reading skills or more general language comprehension weaknesses.
Aims
We report two studies to examine how reading and listening comprehension skills are related to inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity.
Samples
Separate groups of 7‐ to 11‐year‐olds participated in each study.
Methods
In both studies, we used teacher ratings of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity to identify three groups at risk of ADHD: poor attention, high hyperactivity, poor attention and high hyperactivity, and also same‐age controls. In Study 1, we explored how inattention and hyperactivity predicted reading after controlling for non‐verbal IQ and vocabulary. In Study 2, we compared listening and reading comprehension in these groups.
Results
Poor attention was related to poor reading comprehension, although the relation was partially mediated by word reading skill (Study 1). Groups with high hyperactivity had weak listening comprehension relative to reading comprehension (Study 2).
Conclusions
These results indicate that the reading comprehension problems of children with attention difficulties are related to poor word reading and that listening comprehension is particularly vulnerable in children at risk of ADHD.
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