The authors' aim was to examine the relation between two-digit mental multiplication and working memory. In Study 1, involving 30 fifth-grade students, we used digit span backward as an abbreviated measure of working memory. In Study 2, involving 41 fourth-grade students, working memory comprised measures of phonological loop, visuospatial…

There is growing evidence supporting the importance of executive functions, and specifically working memory updating (WMU), for children's academic achievement. This study aimed to assess the specific contribution of updating to the prediction of academic performance. Two updating tasks, which included different updating components, were…

Writing down spoken number words (transcoding) is an ability that is predictive of math performance and related to working memory ability. We analysed these relationships in a large sample of over 25,000 children, from kindergarten to the end of primary school, who solved transcoding items with a computer adaptive system. Furthermore, we…

This study aimed to examine the relations among property strategies, working memory, and multiplication tasks with 101 Chinese fourth-grade students. Two multiplication property strategies (associative and distributive) were compared with no strategy and demonstrated differentiated effects on students' accuracy and reaction time. Associative…

We studied the performance in three genres of Chinese written composition (narration, exposition, and argumentation) of 158 grade 4, 5, and 6 poor Chinese text comprehenders compared with 156 good Chinese text comprehenders. We examined text comprehension and written composition relationship. Verbal working memory (verbal span working memory and…

The present study aimed to investigate the contribution of oral language skills, linguistic skills, and transcription skills to Chinese written composition among Grade 4 students in Hong Kong. Measures assessing verbal working memory, oral language skills, linguistic skills (i.e., syntactic skills and discourse skills), transcription skills (i.e.,…

This study investigated some of the underlying factors that may relate to and predict the reading comprehension of children in fourth through eighth grade (N = 47). A subset of these children previously had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD; n = 10); the remainder are classified as typically-developing (n = 37). The participants…