Purpose: One challenge to the design and delivery of effective vocabulary intervention is the selection of vocabulary targets. The purpose of this study was to examine the relation of word characteristics to vocabulary learning from explicit vocabulary intervention. Method: This study was a secondary analysis of data from two recent efficacy…

In the search for mechanisms that contribute to dyslexia, the term "attention" has been invoked to explain performance in a variety of tasks, creating confusion since all tasks do, indeed, demand "attention." Many studies lack an experimental manipulation of attention that would be necessary to determine its influence on task…

We examined the cognitive, language, and instructional predictors of early word-reading ability in a sample of children with Williams syndrome longitudinally. At Time 1, sixty-nine 6-7-year-olds (mean age = 6.53 years) completed standardized measures of phonological awareness, visual-spatial perception, vocabulary, and overall intellectual…

The present study explored the mediating effect of word detection on the relationship between visual-spatial attention and reading comprehension in Chinese. The participants included 287 Hong Kong Chinese children (167 third graders, 84 girls, "mean age" = 8.73, SD = 0.49, and 120 fourth graders, 45 girls, "mean age" = 9.93, SD…

Dyslexic individuals have serious difficulties in learning to read, and several software programs have been developed to overcome them. Previous research studies found that in most cases, providing correct spelling and word recognition with greater accuracy constitutes the key function. However, more research has to be conducted on the software…

Purpose: Multiple factors impact reading acquisition in individuals with reading disability, including genetic disorders such as Williams syndrome (WS). Despite a relative strength in oral language, individuals with WS usually have an intellectual disability and tend to display deficits in areas associated with reading. There is substantial…

Drawing on Geary's (1995) evolution-based model of cognitive and academic development, this study investigated the relation between biologically primary skills (vocabulary, executive functions, and visual-spatial processing) and subsequent word reading and calculation. It also examined the extent to which these relations were mediated by…

This study of children from two U. S. states examined associations among four cognitive and academic skills: executive function (EF), visuo-motor integration, mathematics assessed with applied problems, and letter-word knowledge. Before (T1) and after (T2) kindergarten, children (N=555) were assessed using the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) EF…

Purpose: Reading requires the ability to decode and comprehend. Impairments in working memory (WM) are often implicated in students who are poor decoders. It is unclear whether this is a domain-specific issue or a task-specific issue. Therefore, this study examined how auditory-verbal (AV) WM, visual-spatial (VS) WM, and cognitive load affected…

This study compared word recognition for words written in a traditional flat font to the same words written in a three-dimensional appearing font determined to create a right hemispheric stimulation. The participants were emergent readers enrolled in Montessori schools in the United States learning to read basic CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant)…

Two experiments combined a spatial cueing manipulation (valid vs. invalid spatial cues) with a stimulus repetition manipulation (repeated vs. nonrepeated) in order to assess the hypothesis that familiar items need less spatial attention than less familiar ones. The magnitude of the effect of cueing on reading aloud time for items that were…

This study investigated the differential contribution of auditory-verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) on decoding skills in second- and fifth-grade children identified with poor decoding. Thirty-two second-grade students and 22 fifth-grade students completed measures that assessed simple and complex auditory-verbal and visuospatial memory,…

Using the gaze-contingent boundary paradigm with the boundary placed after word n, the experiment manipulated preview of word n + 2 for fixations on word n. There was no preview benefit for 1st-pass reading on word n + 2, replicating the results of K. Rayner, B. J. Juhasz, and S. J. Brown (2007), but there was a preview benefit on the 3-letter…

Applying Bloch's law to visual word recognition research, both exposure duration of the prime and its luminance determine the prime's overall energy, and consequently determine the size of the priming effect. Nevertheless, experimenters using fast-priming paradigms traditionally focus only on the SOA between prime and target to reflect the…

Effects of inversion and reversal on children's word recognition performance were examined in relation to age, reading level, and word familiarity to determine whether retarded readers have greater facility with disoriented text than do normal readers. An inverse relationship between number and time ratios was found. (RH)