Cognitive Processing of Low Achievers and Children with Reading Disabilities: A Selective Meta-Analytic Review of the Published Literature

Abstract

This article synthesizes some of the published literature comparing the cognitive functioning of children with reading disabilities (RD) and children with low reading and low intelligence (low achievers). Nineteen studies, which yielded 274 effect sizes (ESs), indicated that children with reading disabilities outperformed low achievers (LA) on measures of lexical knowledge, syntactical knowledge, and visual-spatial processing (ES means =.55,.87,.36, respectively), but not on measures of phonological processing [e.g., ES mean =.25 for pseudo-word reading, ES mean = -.06 for automaticity (rapid naming)]. Regression modeling indicated that the magnitude of effect size differences on cognitive measures between RD and LA children was significantly related to chronological age (older participants yield smaller effect sizes than younger participants) and verbal IQ (the greater the difference in IQ between RD and LA participants the larger the effect size). Model testing further supported the hypothesis that relative to other cognitive measures, children with RD share a common phonological core deficit with LA achievers. However, the results indicated that the deficits shared between these two groups are much broader than a phonological core. The results were discussed within the context of defining children with RD by discrepancy criteria and how advances in the classification of such children might occur.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maureen Hoskyn

Maureen Hoskyn is completing her PhD in educational psychology at the University of California at Riverside. Her dissertation work focuses on writing and working memory development. She has served as a special education teacher and school psychologist in British Columbia.

H. Lee Swanson

H. Lee Swanson, PhD, is a professor in the educational psychology and special education program, University of California at Riverside. He served as the former editor of the Learning Disability Quarterly. His research interests include memory, intellectual development, and instruction as it relates to students with learning disabilities.