The current study investigated the stability of children's risk status across the preschool year. A total of 1,102 preschool children attending Title 1 schools (n = 631) and non-Title 1 schools (n = 471) participated in this study. Using averaged standard scores for two measures of language, print knowledge, and phonological awareness administered…

The heterogeneity among children with learning disabilities still represents a barrier and a challenge in their conceptualization. Although a dimensional approach has been gaining support, the categorical approach is still the most adopted, as in the recent fifth edition of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders." The…

Word and pseudoword reading are related abilities fundamental to reading development in alphabetic orthographies. They are respectively assumed to index children's orthographic representations of words, which are in turn acquired through the underlying "self-teaching mechanism" of alphabetic pseudoword decoding. Little is known about…

Substantial evidence has established that individual differences in executive function (EF) in early childhood are uniquely predictive of children's academic readiness at school entry. The current study tested whether growth trajectories of EF across the early childhood period could be used to identify a subset of children who were at pronounced…

Do children who go on to develop dyslexia show normal verbal and nonverbal development before reading onset? According to the aptitude-achievement discrepancy model, dyslexia is defined as a discrepancy between intelligence and reading achievement. One of the underlying assumptions is that the general cognitive development of children who fail to…

Babbling between the ages of 8 and 19 months was examined in 19 children, 13 of whom were at high risk for reading disorder (RD) and 6 normally reading children at low familial risk for RD. Development of syllable complexity was examined at five periods across this 11-month window. Results indicated that children who later evidenced RD produced a…

Cognitive performance asymmetries in favor of functions attributed to the right cerebral hemisphere are reported for 105 out of 108 children to a clinic for reading difficulties. Results suggest that reading disabled children are homogeneous with at least the right/left asymmetry aspect of their cognitive profile. (Author/CL)

Fifty-five dyslexic and 30 normal readers (8-12 years old) were administered the K-ABC. Normal readers demonstrated significantly higher scores on the cognitive subtests of "Hand Movements,""Number Recall, Word Order," and "Matrix Analogies" as well as on each achievement subtest, the "Sequential" and…

A pilot study in which four postsecondary students with learning problems participated in sessions modeled after R. Feuerstein's theory of cognitive modifiability (instrumental enrichment) indicated the potential power of the Feuerstein method to improve learning disabled students' cognitive skills. (CL)

Reanalysis of previously reported findings associating preschool lead level and outcome measures (including cognitive measures, reading tests, and teacher behavior ratings) did not substantiate the positive findings. (CL)

Average and backward readers from Grades 2, 4, and 6 were examined for their performance on five cognitive tasks, three of which measured memory span. Results were consistent with a developmental trend and increment with reading competence. No differences were obtained between matched groups, which supported a developmental interpretation.…

Response latencies of 27 learning disabled (LD) and 27 normal control boys (8-11 years old) were compared on a picture-word interference task. Both LD and control Ss exhibited greater interference effects (longer response latencies) when naming pictures (versus naming words) and when categorizing words (versus categorizing pictures). (Author/CL)

A study involving 69 randomly selected elementary students indicated that increases in arsenic and interaction of arsenic lead were significantly related to decreased reading and spelling achievement, and increases in aluminum and the interaction of aluminum with lead were significantly related to decreased visual-motor performance. (Author/CL)

The cognitive patterns of three learning disability subtypes were studied: (1) students with higher math than reading skills, (2) students with higher reading than math skills, and (3) students with equally low math and reading skills. Results indicated that although the three groups were characterized by a number of discrete or unique patterns,…

The LD first graders were found to have a lower level as well as greater variability in their understanding of basic concepts. The greatest discrepancy of the LD group was found on concepts of quantity, space, and miscellaneous, respectively. (Author)