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…

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…

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)

The study of 813 learning disabled children (ages 6-11) with test-retest data (after three years) on 224 children found the children to suffer a progressive deterioration in verbal ability whereas their nonverbal ability showed an increase in the earlier years, leveling off thereafter. (Author/DB)

Papers from a symposium on specific cognitive impairment in children with learning disabilities are summarized, and the implications of their results for further research are discussed. While most of the papers addressed reading skills, the generalizability of the research for other learning-disabled children is also considered. (MSE)