Magnet schools have been a main tool or innovation in urban education settings in the United States, originating in the early 1970's and expanding into most large urban districts today (Blank, 1989). While some magnet schools do not rely on a specific criterion to determine entry, many do. This study focuses on such a setting where students must…

In this article, we analyze symbolic and non-symbolic numerical abilities of parents in order to understand whether these are predictors of children's numerical skills, considering basic symbolic, non-symbolic, and formal math skills (i.e., written calculation). A battery of cognitive and math tasks was administered to a sample of 83 children with…

This study examines the initial word reading performance of fourth-grade struggling readers and the extent to which differing levels of word reading performance at pretest influenced their response to reading interventions. A large group of students with significant reading comprehension difficulties (N = 481) were classified into three clusters…

Students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) represent a large proportion of those receiving special education services in U.S. schools, but the relationship between student-level variables and SLD identification is still not well understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which data collected as part of a…

Cognitive skill differences that are apparent early in pre-kindergarten (pre-K) might provide predictive insights into risk for learning difficulties at school entry, particularly around early markers of risk for comorbid difficulties in early math and literacy. Domain-specific abilities (approximate number system or ANS acuity, phonological…

Cognitive skill differences that are apparent early in pre-kindergarten (pre-K) might provide predictive insights into risk for learning difficulties at school entry, particularly around early markers of risk for comorbid difficulties in early math and literacy. Domain-specific abilities (approximate number system or ANS acuity, phonological…

Little is known about the relation between cognitive processes and imagination and whether this relation differs between neurotypically developing children and children with autism. To address this issue, we administered a cognitive task battery and Karmiloff-Smith's drawing task, which requires children to draw imaginative people and houses. For…

Preschool children begin to represent spoken language in print long before receiving formal instruction in spelling and writing. The current study sought to identify the component skills that contribute to preschool children's ability to begin to spell words and write their name. Ninety-five preschool children (mean age = 57 months) completed a…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of inference making, decoding, memory, and vocabulary on reading comprehension among 7th- through 12th-grade struggling readers with varying levels of inattention and hyperactivity. We categorized a group of 414 struggling readers into 3 groups based on results from factor mixture modeling:…

Understanding differences in oral language abilities is vital, particularly for children from low-income homes and minority children who are at an increased risk for academic failure because of differences or deficits in language use or exposure before they enter school. The purpose of this study was to investigate oral language performance,…

Purpose: This study aimed to identify child-level characteristics that predict gains in language skills for children with language impairment who were receiving therapy within the public schools. The therapy provided represented business-as-usual speech/language treatment provided by speech-language pathologists in the public schools. Method: The…

Introduction: The present study provides description of two typologically diverse languages in origin (Slavic vs. Latin), script (Cyrillic vs. Roman), and internal structure. One of the similarities, between the two studied orthographies is that spelling-sound transparency is quite consistent in both languages. The goal of the present study was to…

Background: Little is known about the nature, range and prevalence of different subgroups in language trajectories extant in a population from 4 to 11 years. This hinders strategic targeting and design of interventions, particularly targeting those whose difficulties will likely persist. Methods: Children's language abilities from 4 to 11 years…

This study examines the relationship between complex oral language and phonological awareness in the preschool years. Specifically, the authors investigate the relationship between concurrent measures of oral narrative structure (based on measures of both story retell and generation), and measures of blending and elision in a sample of 89 children…

The paper reports on a study designed to develop a risk model that can best predict single-word spelling in seven-year-old children when they were aged 4 and 5. Test measures, personal characteristics and environmental influences were all considered as variables from a community sample of 971 children. Strong concurrent correlations were found…