Phonemic awareness (PA) refers to the ability to reflect on and manipulate phonemes. The development of the ability to become aware of and conduct mental operations on phonemes might involve higher-order cognitive processes, such as executive functions (EFs), which help modulate attention to goal-relevant information and support behavioral…

Background: Cognitive and linguistic factors have been incorporated into models to explain reading comprehension beyond classical models of reading. This study explores the contribution of executive functions, mainly domain-general and reading-specific cognitive flexibility, in reading comprehension of science texts in monolingual Spanish speaking…

This research aims to evaluate the predicting role of executive functions, specially inhibition and flexibility, in reading comprehension. Participants were evaluated with inhibition and flexibility measures in first- grade, and later in third- grade their reading comprehension, oral and silent reading fluency, as well as their decoding skills…

Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) has been widely recognized as a reliable predictor of reading proficiency. Although RAN represents the speed of cognitive processing, there are few studies that have addressed RAN as a cognitive process in its own right Furthermore, RAN performance of ELL (English Language Learners) has been less frequently…

Research Findings: Optimal sleep is important for children's learning and development. "Sleep disordered breathing" (SDB) refers to a spectrum of conditions from simple snoring to obstructive sleep apnea that is common in childhood and interrupts sleep. We examined pathways between SDB and academic performance of children (N = 163, M…

Although it is established that reading fluency is more strongly related to serial naming of symbols than to naming of isolated items ("serial superiority effect"), the reason for the difference remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of executive functions in explaining the serial superiority effect. One…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of healthy aging on the ability to suppress grammatically illicit antecedents during pronoun resolution. Method: In 2 reading-based acceptability-judgment experiments, younger and older speakers of German read sentences containing an object pronoun and 2 potential antecedent noun…

Competent reading requires various skills beyond those for basic word reading (i.e., core language skills, rapid naming, phonological processing). Contributing "higher-level" or domain-general processes include information processing speed and executive functions (working memory, strategic problem solving, attentional switching).…

Introduction: Reading comprehension is a complex cognitive skill that has been associated with executive functions such as working memory (WM) and inhibition. Given that the development of these abilities continues through late adolescence, this study seeks to explore the role that both processes play with respect to varying levels of reading…

Background: The dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) has been linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reading disorders. In this study, we examined whether diminished anticipatory dopamine cell firing--typical of the long variant of the DRD4 allele--is related to emergent and advanced alphabetic skills, and whether executive…