This study investigated the comparability of paper and computer versions of a functional writing assessment administered to adults 16 and older. Three writing tasks were administered in both paper and computer modes to volunteers in the field test of an assessment of adult literacy in 2008. One set of analyses examined mode effects on scoring by…

Used longitudinal data from a sample of African-American children of teenaged mothers in the Baltimore, Maryland, area to examine determinants of functional literacy in adulthood. Found that preschool cognitive and behavioral functioning predicted literacy in young adulthood. Family environmental factors that predicted literacy in young adulthood…

Data from a 20-year longitudinal study of 125 males and 126 females born to Black teenage mothers in a Baltimore hospital between 1966 and 1968 were analyzed to identify early childhood, middle childhood, and early adolescence determinants of functional literacy. All 251 subjects were interviewed in 1987, and 202 of them completed a document…

Anticipated demographic changes in the United States adult population in the decade between the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) of 1992 and the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), which is scheduled for 2002, were reviewed. Next, the implications of those changes for the NALS and NAAL were analyzed. The analysis focused on births,…

Data drawn from 3 cycles of data collection for the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) were analyzed to identify the levels and distributions of literacy skills in the adult populations of 20 countries. The following were among the main conclusions: (1) in 14 of the countries, at least 15% of all adults have literacy skills at only the…