Reading comprehension improvement in autism.

Introduction: A subset of autistic children excel at word decoding but have difficulty with reading comprehension (i.e., the discrepant poor comprehender reading profile). Prior research suggests the Visualizing and Verbalizing (V/V) for language comprehension and thinking intervention helps improve reading comprehension in autistic children with this reading profile. Previous studies have demonstrated the role of vocabulary, memory, and social functioning in reading comprehension; however, predictors and moderators of reading comprehension within this specific profile of autistic readers have not been thoroughly explored. Methods: In this study, we examined the effectiveness of the V/V intervention by comparing reading comprehension scores between groups and across time. Participants included a sample of autistic children (AUT-EXP; n=22) and a waitlist control group of autistic children (AUT-WLC; n=17) with reading comprehension difficulties, as well as a sample of non-autistic children (Non-AUT; n=26) (all age 8-13 years). AUT-EXP and AUT-WLC groups completed a battery of cognitive assessments during pre and post tests. We also analyzed whether cognitive assessment scores predicted reading comprehension, and examined the moderating effects of group (AUT-EXP vs. AUT-WLC) on these relationships. Results: The AUT-EXP group significantly improved in their pre to post reading comprehension scores (t(21)=4.19, p<.001, d=.89), whereas the AUT-WLC group did not. Verbal memory significantly predicted reading comprehension, though group did not moderate relationships between cognitive test performance and reading comprehension. Discussion: Results suggest that the V/V intervention may help improve reading comprehension for autistic children with the discrepant poor comprehender reading profile. Additionally, strategies for improving verbal memory may indirectly enhance reading comprehension in autistic children with this reading profile.

Impact of background music on reading comprehension: influence of lyrics language and study habits.

Numerous studies have explored the effects of background music on reading comprehension, however, little is known about how native language (L1) lyrics and second language (L2) lyrics in background music influence reading comprehension performance for college students. The present study used a mixed experimental design to examine the effects of listening habits (between-participants variable: non-listeners or listeners), music type (between-participants variable: L1 (Mandarin) pop music, L2 (English) pop music or no music) and text language (within-participants variable: L1 or L2) on reading comprehension of college students in East China. A total of 90 participants (50 females) were screened into non- listeners (n = 45) and listeners (n = 45), and then were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Mandarin pop music group (n = 30), English pop music group (n = 30) and no music group (n = 30). The results showed that reading comprehension performance was negatively affected by music with lyrics compared to the no music condition. Furthermore, Chinese/English reading comprehension was reduced more by pop music in the same language as the written texts. As expected, non-listeners were more negatively affected by music with lyrics than listeners. For both listeners and non-listeners, average reading comprehension accuracy rates were the lowest in the condition of music with native language lyrics. Overall, our research findings indicate that listening to pop music with lyrics reduces reading comprehension performance. However, listening to background music cause much less distraction if the students commonly listen to music while reading. The current study supports the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction.

Reading comprehension differences between children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and low cognitive abilities and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and intact cognitive skills: the roles of decoding, fluency and morphosyntax.

Introduction: Reading comprehension is one of the most important skills learned in school and it has an important contribution to the academic success of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Though previous studies have investigated reading comprehension difficulties in ASD and highlighted factors that contribute to these difficulties, this evidence has mainly stemmed from children with ASD and intact cognitive skills. Also, much emphasis has been placed on the relation between reading comprehension and word recognition skills, while the role of other skills, including fluency and morphosyntax, remains underexplored. This study addresses these gaps by investigating reading comprehension in two groups of school-aged children with ASD, one with intact and one with low cognitive abilities, also exploring the roles of word decoding, fluency and morphosyntax in each group's reading comprehension performance. Methods: The study recruited 16 children with ASD and low cognitive abilities, and 22 age-matched children with ASD and intact cognitive skills. The children were assessed on four reading subdomains, namely, decoding, fluency, morphosyntax, and reading comprehension. Results: The children with ASD and low cognitive abilities scored significantly lower than their peers with intact cognitive abilities in all reading subdomains, except for decoding, verb production and compound word formation. Regression analyses showed that reading comprehension in the group with ASD and intact cognitive abilities was independently driven by their decoding and fluency skills, and to a lesser extent, by morphosyntax. On the other hand, the children with ASD and low cognitive abilities mainly drew on their decoding, and to a lesser extent, their morphosyntactic skills to perform in reading comprehension. Discussion: The results suggest that reading comprehension was more strongly affected in the children with ASD and low cognitive abilities as compared to those with intact cognitive skills. About half of the children with ASD and intact cognitive skills also exhibited mild-to-moderate reading comprehension difficulties, further implying that ASD may influence reading comprehension regardless of cognitive functioning. Finally, strengths in decoding seemed to predominantly drive cognitively-impaired children's reading performance, while the group with ASD and intact cognitive skills mainly recruited fluency and metalinguistic lexical skills to cope with reading comprehension demands, further suggesting that metalinguistic awareness may be a viable way to enhance reading comprehension in ASD.

L2 Arabic learners' processing of Arabic garden-path sentences: a consistent reading pattern.

Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent the L2 Arabic learners' reading process is affected by the incomplete representation of speech (the absence of short vowels and diacritics) while reading ambiguous sentences (garden path sentences). Method: With a self-paced reading software program, 41 non-native male students, aged from 22 to 26, enrolled in King Saud University, participated in reading 44 sentences (followed by reading comprehension questions) representing three reading conditions, plain, vowelized-discretized, and wrongly-vowelized. Results: For the reading times data, the analysis revealed that the GP structure had a significant effect on the reading processes of L2 Arabic learners; it took them longer to read the GP sentences than their non-GP counterparts. For the reading comprehension, the analysis did not reveal any significant differences between the means for the percentages of correct responses. For the comparison between the three reading conditions, a significant difference was found: it took the participants on average less time to read the GP sentences when presented plain, and more time with the incorrect representation. However, their reading comprehension was not affected. Conclusion: In addition to the good-enough model and the nature of Arabic morphology, the reading experience, is a good candidate to start with as an important factor in the interpretation of the ineffectiveness of the GP structure on the reading comprehension process of Arabic readers, in which the segregability of Arabic writing system prepare the readers to emphasize some sensory inputs and ignore others based on their past reading experience.

Efficient Machine Reading Comprehension for Health Care Applications: Algorithm Development and Validation of a Context Extraction Approach.

BACKGROUND: Extractive methods for machine reading comprehension (MRC) tasks have achieved comparable or better accuracy than human performance on benchmark data sets. However, such models are not as successful when adapted to complex domains such as health care. One of the main reasons is that the context that the MRC model needs to process when operating in a complex domain can be much larger compared with an average open-domain context. This causes the MRC model to make less accurate and slower predictions. A potential solution to this problem is to reduce the input context of the MRC model by extracting only the necessary parts from the original context. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to develop a method for extracting useful contexts from long articles as an additional component to the question answering task, enabling the MRC model to work more efficiently and accurately. METHODS: Existing approaches to context extraction in MRC are based on sentence selection strategies, in which the models are trained to find the sentences containing the answer. We found that using only the sentences containing the answer was insufficient for the MRC model to predict correctly. We conducted a series of empirical studies and observed a strong relationship between the usefulness of the context and the confidence score output of the MRC model. Our investigation showed that a precise input context can boost the prediction correctness of the MRC and greatly reduce inference time. We proposed a method to estimate the utility of each sentence in a context in answering the question and then extract a new, shorter context according to these estimations. We generated a data set to train 2 models for estimating sentence utility, based on which we selected more precise contexts that improved the MRC model's performance. RESULTS: We demonstrated our approach on the Question Answering Data Set for COVID-19 and Biomedical Semantic Indexing and Question Answering data sets and showed that the approach benefits the downstream MRC model. First, the method substantially reduced the inference time of the entire question answering system by 6 to 7 times. Second, our approach helped the MRC model predict the answer more correctly compared with using the original context (F1-score increased from 0.724 to 0.744 for the Question Answering Data Set for COVID-19 and from 0.651 to 0.704 for the Biomedical Semantic Indexing and Question Answering). We also found a potential problem where extractive transformer MRC models predict poorly despite being given a more precise context in some cases. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed context extraction method allows the MRC model to achieve improved prediction correctness and a significantly reduced MRC inference time. This approach works technically with any MRC model and has potential in tasks involving processing long texts.

Reading Comprehension in the Arabic Diglossia: The SVR Between the Spoken and Literary Varieties.

This study aimed to examine the validity of the "simple view of reading" (SVR) model in the diglossic Arabic language. Using a longitudinal design, we tested whether decoding and listening comprehension (LC) in kindergarten can later predict reading comprehension (RC) in the first grade and whether the contribution of LC to RC differs between the spoken and literary varieties of Arabic. The participants were 261 kindergartners who were followed to the first grade. Our results from separate SEM analysis for the spoken and literary varieties revealed some similarity between the explained variance in the spoken (52%) and literary (48%) variety models. However, while the contribution of LC to RC was higher than the contribution of decoding in the spoken variety model, an opposite pattern was observed in the literary variety model. The results are discussed in light of the diglossia phenomenon and its impact on comprehension skills in Arabic, with theoretical and pedagogical implications.

Cognitive Regulation Strategies Used by Children with Reading Difficulties.

(1) Background: Children with reading difficulties may experience negative emotions and social isolation. The cognitive emotion regulation strategies that they use in different reading tasks can make them more vulnerable in the stressful situations. Using adaptative emotion regulation strategies may help them overcome stressful reading situations. (2) Methods: Children identified with poor reading comprehension skills were compared to children without reading comprehension difficulties on measures of self-evaluation and thought in relation to task, and on cognitive coping strategies relevant to performance. The effect of some relevant demographic factors was also investigated, such as gender and urban/rural setting. (3) Results: Our results indicate that children that have poor reading comprehension skills present higher scores on negative self- evaluation and off-task thoughts that are in relation to performance anxiety. Also, in what concerns cognitive coping strategies, students with difficulties in reading comprehension display a greater use of blaming others strategy, which is in relation to the negative self-evaluations. Also, they displayed less use of putting into perspective. No effect of gender and setting emerged for off and on task thoughts and cognitive coping strategies, except for lower scores of students from rural setting in positive self-evaluation. (4) Conclusions: students presenting difficulties in reading comprehension tend to use more negative self-statements and disengagement through off-task thoughts and employ coping strategies directed to protect self-worth.

Bilingual Children's Vocabulary Skills at 5 Years Predict Reading Comprehension Development Within, Not Across, Languages.

Extensive evidence indicates that early vocabulary skills predict later reading development among monolingually developing children. Some evidence suggests that a relationship between vocabulary and later reading also holds across languages among children whose home language differs from the school language. However, these findings have been mixed and it remains unclear if, and under what circumstances, vocabulary in one language supports reading comprehension development in another. The present study followed 84 Spanish-English bilingual children, assessing their vocabulary skills at 5 years and their reading comprehension at 6, 7, 8, and 9 years. Longitudinal multilevel models revealed significant within-language relations between early vocabulary knowledge and subsequent reading comprehension in both English and Spanish and no across-language relations. There were significant concurrent across-language relations between English and Spanish reading comprehension skills. These findings suggest that the contribution of vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension is language specific but that there are also language general components to reading comprehension, which result in significant concurrent relations between reading comprehension skill across languages.

The Role of Theory of Mind, Executive Functions, and Central Coherence in Reading Comprehension for Children with ASD and Typical Development.

Many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have challenges in reading comprehension, especially when implicit information in narrative texts is involved. Three interrelated factors influencing reading comprehension have been proposed to explain these challenges: Theory of Mind - ToM; executive functions - EF; and central coherence - CC. This study investigated the differential contribution of these cognitive abilities to reading comprehension among cognitively able children with ASD compared to matched peers with typical development (TD). 28 third-grade children with ASD and 28 third-grade children with TD participated in the study. Four measures were administered: ToM, CC, EF (working memory, planning, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility), and reading comprehension. One-way ANOVAs were computed to examine group differences in cognitive characteristics (ToM, CC, EF) and reading comprehension. Regressions were performed to examine the contribution of cognitive characteristics (ToM, CC, EF) to reading comprehension abilities (explicit, implicit, and general score) in ASD and TD. The TD group outperformed the ASD group in ToM and various EF measures but not in CC or reading comprehension. Positive main effects were found for ToM, and EF measures (planning - 3rd level, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility), demonstrating their contribution to reading comprehension abilities in both groups. Interactions revealed positive main effects for EF planning and CC for the ASD group only, showing the contribution of EF planning and CC for better reading comprehension. Our findings suggest different processing mechanisms regarding reading comprehension in each group.

Effects of Adjunct Questions on L2 Reading Comprehension with Texts of Different Types.

Answering text-related questions while reading is a questioning strategy which is called adjunct questions or embedded questions, the benefits of which have been established in first-language reading as to enhance comprehension. The present study aims to study the effects different adjunct questions exert on second-language (L2) readers' comprehension of texts of various types. One hundred and forty-four intermediate-level Chinese EFL learners participated in this study and were divided randomly into six groups. Each group was given either a narrative or an expository text with 'what or why' questions or no questions. A brief topic familiarity questionnaire was attached to the end of each text paper. The results showed that inserted adjunct questions improved the readers' reading comprehension both in expository and narrative texts, but only narrative texts inserted with why questions had significant effects on the L2 reading comprehension. The findings suggested that text types and question types modulate the effects of inserted adjunct questions on the English reading of intermediate learners. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for future studies are provided.

Students' reading comprehension level and reading demands in teacher education programs: the elephant in the room?

Introduction: Reading comprehension is considered a key ability for students in teacher education programs. Methods: Data from 72 students enrolled in a Chilean school of education was used to estimate the contribution of reading proficiency in first-semester academic performance using regression analysis. Results: Reading comprehension made a significant, albeit modest contribution to predict students' academic performance, after controlling for their scores in the standardized national admission tests and high-school grades. The students' average reading level was below the level of text complexity required in their first term and, although by their senior year they had made significant progress in reading comprehension, their reading level continued to be lower than text demands. Discussion: A qualitative exploration of students' reading behaviors and attitudes revealed they devoted few hours per week to reading class material and even less time to reading for leisure. Faculty were cognizant of the reading deficits of their students but had few suggestions as to how to address. Future studies in higher education should confirm whether the misfit between reading proficiency and reading demands observed in this school of education is the exception or the rule.

The effect of reading strategy use on online reading comprehension.

In the current age, digital technology is rapidly changing daily routines, and young people today spend most of their time using various digital tools. Therefore, traditional reading of the printed page is being transformed into digital reading of online texts among students. Thus, online reading strategies have become crucial for their development in online reading performance. This study aimed to investigate the effects of online reading strategies used by lower secondary students on reading comprehension achievement. It conducted an online survey of reading strategies, involving three types of reading strategies, global, problem-solving, and support. The study recruited 4527 students at the lower secondary school level in Hungary. The study examined the students' attitudes toward literature and grammar in their native language (L1), use of online reading strategies, reading comprehension skills, and language arts achievement as well as examining the relations between them with various methods of analysis (descriptive/inferential, Rasch and path analyses). The findings demonstrated that the students' problem-solving strategies (from among the three reading strategies) exerted significant and positive impacts on reading comprehension. Additionally, the students' attitudes toward L1 had a positively significant effect on their use of online reading strategies and language arts achievement and an indirect effect on reading comprehension skills. The study also found a significant relationship between language arts achievement and reading comprehension achievement. Therefore, this study is beneficial for language teachers in helping students improve reading comprehension skills.

The impact of morphological density on reading comprehension in Arabic: A comparison between typically developing and children with reading disabilities.

This study examined the influence of morphological density on reading comprehension in Arabic and whether this influence differs between typical and children with reading disabilities. Morphological density in Arabic is a text feature that refers to using bound morphemes, creating dense words with more morphemes. The participants were 182 fifth-graders, both typical and children with reading disabilities. Children were assessed in reading comprehension by reading texts with low- or high-morphological density. Findings revealed that overall morphological density impacted reading comprehension performance. That is, scores were found to be higher while reading low-density text than high-density text. Moreover, an interaction of morphological density condition by reading proficiency showed no density text effect among typical developing readers. However, a difference was obtained in the children with reading disabilities whereas low-morphological density text score was higher than the score of high-morphological density text. The study highlights the importance of morphological awareness in reading comprehension in Arabic, extending that morphological density plays an important role in this process. The results are discussed in light of the lexical quality hypothesis and simple view of reading model. The findings imply the need of explicit morphological instruction for dense morphological forms.

The effects of segmentation on cognitive load, vocabulary learning and retention, and reading comprehension in a multimedia learning environment.

BACKGROUND: Segmentation is a common pedagogical approach in multimedia learning, but its effects on cognitive processes and learning outcomes have yet to be comprehensively explored. Understanding the role of segmentation is crucial, as it has the potential to influence the way instructional materials are designed and delivered in digital learning environments. OBJECTIVES: This research aims to fill this gap by examining the impact of segmentation on cognitive load, vocabulary acquisition, retention, and reading comprehension in a multimedia learning context. METHODOLOGY: Participants were selected from two language schools in Zhengzhou through a multi-stage random sampling method. Ninety teenage students were randomly assigned to six experimental groups. The study utilized a 2 × 3 factorial design to examine segmentation and textual augmentation effects. Four assessment instruments were employed: a Reading Comprehension Test, a Vocabulary Assessment Test, a Cognitive Load Assessment Scale, and a Prior Knowledge Test. The experiment comprised four stages: pre-test, Instruction, post-test, and follow-up. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 22 software, involving descriptive statistics, one-way, and multi-way analysis of variance. RESULTS: Results indicated that high segmentation significantly impacts cognitive load, vocabulary learning, retention, and reading comprehension across various aspects of multimedia learning. In essence, segmentation reduces cognitive load, supports learning efficiency, and facilitates more profound understanding, vocabulary learning, and retention. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: High segmentation in multimedia learning significantly impacts cognitive load, vocabulary learning, comprehension, and retention. Educators should prioritize segmentation for more effective and engaging e-learning experiences.

Mind wandering may both promote and impair learning.

The present investigation deals with individual differences in habitual (trait-level) mind wandering and their effects on learning. We hypothesized that the 'positive-constructive' type of habitual mind wandering would promote task-related thinking and the 'poor-attention' type to promote task-unrelated thinking. This hypothesis was tested in a study with 200 participants who rated different aspects of their mind wandering in daily life in one session and completed a reading study in a second session. The reading study included thought probes, retrospective questions about readers' thought contents, and comprehension tests after reading. In line with our hypothesis, data analysis revealed that some forms of positive-constructive mind wandering were positively associated with text-related thought, whereas poor-attention mind wandering was positively associated with text-unrelated thought. The present results add to the literature by emphasizing different types of trait-level mind wandering and their potentially opposite effects on learning.

Pharmaceutical pictograms to improve textual comprehension: A systematic review.

INTRODUCTION: Written instructive information for the patient is key in pharmaceutical care. However, the preexisting literature agrees on the discordance between the readability of written medication messages intended for patients. The aim of our work was to systematically review the available evidence on the effect of pharmaceutical pictograms as elements that facilitate understanding of the text in primary or secondary medication packaging. METHODS: A parallel systematic search was conducted of the literature covering evidence of the effect of including pictograms in primary or secondary packaging on comprehension by potential users or caregivers up to April 9, 2023. The databases consulted were Scopus, MEDLINE and Web of Science. Only randomized controlled studies, whose main outcome measure was comprehension, were included. RESULTS: Only 8 papers met our search criteria. In most of the included studies, the intervention of including pictograms improved participants' performance in comprehending instructions. A debatable methodological quality, and differences in the target population, textual complexity of the materials or the cultural affinity of the pictograms with the target population in each study, could have had a decisive influence on the results. CONCLUSION: The heterogeneity in the design of each study poses a significant barrier to establishing commonalities and generalizing the results. This heterogeneity also prevented us from conclusively confirming the usefulness of pictograms complementary to instructional text in improving the comprehension of instructions for the rational use of medicines.

Remote Testing of Reading Comprehension in 8-Year-Old Children: Mode and Setting Effects.

Proctored remote testing of cognitive abilities in the private homes of test-takers is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to standard psychological assessments in test centers or classrooms. Because these tests are administered under less standardized conditions, differences in computer devices or situational contexts might contribute to measurement biases that impede fair comparisons between test-takers. Because it is unclear whether cognitive remote testing might be a feasible assessment approach for young children, the present study (N = 1,590) evaluated a test of reading comprehension administered to children at the age of 8 years. To disentangle mode from setting effects, the children finished the test either in the classroom on paper or computer or remotely on tablets or laptops. Analyses of differential response functioning found notable differences between assessment conditions for selected items. However, biases in test scores were largely negligible. Only for children with below-average reading comprehension small setting effects between on-site and remote testing were observed. Moreover, response effort was higher in the three computerized test versions, among which, reading on tablets most strongly resembled the paper condition. Overall, these results suggest that, on average, even for young children remote testing introduces little measurement bias.

Sadness facilitates "deeper" reading comprehension: a behavioural and eye tracking study.

Reading is one of the most common everyday activities, yet research elucidating how affective influence reading processes and outcomes is sparse with inconsistent results. To investigate this question, we randomly assigned participants (N = 136) to happiness (positive affect), sadness (negative affect), and neutral video-induction conditions prior to engaging in self-paced reading of a long, complex science text. Participants completed assessments targeting multiple levels of comprehension (e.g. recognising factual information, integrating different textual components, and open-ended responses of concepts from memory) after reading and after a week-long delay. Results indicated that the Sadness (vs. Happiness) condition had higher comprehension scores, with the largest effects emerging for assessments targeting deeper levels comprehension immediately after reading. Eye-tracking analyses revealed that such benefits may be partly driven by sustained attentional focus over the 20-minute reading session. We discuss results with respect to theories on affect, cognition, and text comprehension.

'What makes you say so?' Metacognition improves the sustained learning of inferential reading skills in English as a second language.

PURPOSE: This quasi-experimental study investigates the impact of enhancing metacognition in learning inferential reading skills in English as a second language. PROCEDURES: Six Grade 4 classes were randomly assigned to two groups. The "Control group" received an instructional unit on inferential reading skills. The "Metacognition group" received the same unit, including metacognitive activities. Students were assessed in metacognitive and inferential reading skills before (pre-test), immediately after (post-test) and four weeks after the intervention (deferred test). FINDINGS: Metacognitive strategy instruction enhanced student learning of inferential reading skills and its sustainability in time. The Metacognition group attained a significantly higher average score in deploying metacognitive skills both in the post and deferred tests, indicating that the intervention was effective, as intended, to this end. While both groups significantly improved their proficiency in inferential reading skills after working with the provided instructional unit, there was a significant difference in the Metacognition group, which outperformed the Control one, even more strongly in the deferred test. CONCLUSIONS: Findings support the importance of deliberately promoting metacognition as it positively impacts learning outcomes and sustainability.