Uncoupled Brain and Behavior Changes in Lexical, Phonological, and Memory Processing in Struggling Readers

ABSTRACT

Paired behavioral and ERP measures were used to track change over time in 17 third- and fourth-grade struggling readers. Word and nonword reading on standardized tests improved, but differentiation of words and letter strings, measured by N170 and N400 amplitude, did not significantly change. Sound awareness scores improved, but the ERP rhyming effect did not significantly change. Both digit span scores and latency of the P300 oddball effect decreased. Correlations between the ostensibly matched behavioral and electrophysiological measures of change were not significant, indicating that use of ERP and behavioral measures can provide nonoverlapping insight into change during reading development.

Acknowledgments

Grateful thanks are due to the parents/legal guardians and children who elected to participate in this study, and to the local educators and administrators who allowed us to share information about the study with families. Gratitude also to undergraduate research assistants Margaret (Rosie) Mahoney and Anirudh Udutha for help with ERP data collection; Ray Vukcevich for assistance with programming; Blanche Podhajski at the Stern Center for Language and Learning for her oversight of recruitment and intervention; Michael Kornfeld, Janna Osman, Jessica Stoehr, and Michelle Szabo at the Stern Center for their coordination, scheduling, and recruitment efforts; the nine interventionists at the Stern Center; and Cortney Keene at Keene Perspectives, for independently conducting the standardized behavioral testing.

Disclosure of interest

The author reports no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, DC. The data are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed https://doi.org/10.1080/87565641.2020.1871481 here.

Notes

1. Because of a scoring error corrected only after intervention had commenced, one included child did not meet the Phonemic Decoding Efficiency criterion (score of 87).

2. One child discontinued the second ERP session and did not participate in the letter rhyming and auditory oddball paradigms.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant BCS-1420006. The NSF had no role in study design; collection, analysis, or interpretation of data; writing of the report; or the decision to submit the article for publication.