This longitudinal study assessed (a) whether performance changes in working memory (WM) as a function of dynamic testing were related to growth in reading comprehension and (b) whether WM performance among subgroups of children with reading disabilities (RD; children with RD only, children with both reading and arithmetic deficits, and low verbal IQ readers) varied as a function of dynamic testing. A battery of memory and reading measures was administered to 78 children (11.6 years) across three testing waves spaced 1 year apart. WM tasks were presented under initial and dynamic testing conditions (referred to as gain and maintenance testing). The important results were that (a) WM performance as a function of maintenance testing was a significant moderator of growth in reading comprehension and (b) WM performance of children with RD was statistically comparable within subgroups of RD but inferior to that of skilled readers across all testing conditions. The results support the notion that children’s WM performance under dynamic testing conditions was related to the rate of growth in reading comprehension but unrelated to subgroup differences in reading.
Alloway, T.P., Gathercole, S.E., Kirkwood, H.J., & Elliott, J.E. ( 2009). The cognitive and behavioral characteristics of children with low working memory. Child Development, 80, 606-621.
2.
Baddeley, A.D. ( 2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory ? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 417-423.
3.
Baddeley, A.D., & Logie, R.H. ( 1999). The multiple-component model. In A. Miyake & P. Shah (Eds.), Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control (pp. 28-61). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
4.
Brown, A.L., & Ferrara, R.A. ( 1999). Diagnosing zones of proximal development. In P. Lloyd (Ed.), L. Vygotsky: Critical assessments: The zones of proximal development (Vol. 3, pp. 225-256). New York, NY: Routledge.
5.
Cain, K., Oakhill, J., & Bryant, P. ( 2004). Children’s reading comprehension ability: Concurrent prediction by working memory, verbal ability, and component skills. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96, 31-42.
6.
Cowan, N. ( 2005). Working memory capacity. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
7.
Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P.A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450-466.
8.
Daneman, M., & Merikle, P.M. ( 1996). Working memory and language comprehension: A meta-analysis . Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3, 442-433.
9.
Embretson, S.E. ( 1987). Toward development of a psychometric approach. In C. Lidz (Ed.), Dynamic assessment: Foundations and fundamentals (pp. 141-172). New York, NY: Guilford.
10.
Embretson, S.E. ( 1992). Measuring and validating cognitive modifiability as an ability: A study in the spatial domain. Journal of Educational Measurement, 29, 25-50.
11.
Gathercole, S.E., Alloway, T.P., Willis, C., & Adams, A. ( 2006). Working memory in children with reading disabilities . Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 93, 265-281.
12.
Gathercole, S.E., Lamont, E., & Alloway, T.P. ( 2006). Working memory in the classroom. In S. Pickering (Ed.), Working memory in the classroom (pp. 220-238). Oxford, UK: Academic Press.
13.
Gathercole, S.E., Pickering, S.J., Knight, C., & Stegmann, Z. ( 2004). Working memory skills and educational attainment: Evidence from national curriculum assessments at 7 and 14 years of age. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 1-16.
Hoskyn, M., & Swanson, H.L. ( 2000). Cognitive processing of low achievers and children with reading disabilities: A selective meta-analytic review of the published literature . School Psychology Review, 29, 102-119.
16.
Miyake, A., Friedman, N.P., Emerson, M.J., Witzki, A.H., & Howerter, A. ( 2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex frontal lobe tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 49-100.
17.
Nation, K., Adams, J.W., Bowyer-Crane, C.A., & Snowling, M.J. (1999). Working memory deficits in poor comprehenders reflect underlying language impairments. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 73, 39-158.
18.
Peugh, J.L., & Enders, C.K. ( 2004). Missing data in educational research: A review of reporting practices and suggestions for improvement. Review of Educational Research, 74, 525-556.
19.
Raven, J.C. ( 1976). Colored Progressive Matrices. London , UK: H. K. Lewis.
20.
SAS Institute. (2003). SAS/STAT user’s guide. Cary, NC: Author .
21.
Siegel, L.S. ( 1992). An evaluation of the discrepancy definition if dyslexia . Journal of Learning Disabilities, 25, 618-629.
22.
Siegel, L.S., & Ryan, E.B. ( 1989). The development of working memory in normally achieving and subtypes of learning disabled. Child Development, 60, 973-980.
23.
Sternberg, R.J., & Grigorenko, E.L. (2002). Dynamic testing: The nature and measurement of learning potential. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
24.
Swanson, H.L. ( 1992). Generality and modifiability of working memory among skilled and less skilled readers. Journal of Educational Psychology , 84, 473-488.
Swanson, H.L., Ashbaker, M.H., & Lee, C. ( 1996). Learning disabled readers’ working memory as a function of processing demands. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 61, 242-275.
27.
Swanson, H.L. ( 1996). Individual and age-related differences in children’s working memory. Memory & Cognition, 24, 70-82.
28.
Swanson, H.L. ( 1999). What develops in working memory? A life span perspective . Developmental Psychology, 35, 986-1000.
29.
Swanson, H.L. ( 2003). Age-related differences in learning disabled and skilled reader’s working memory. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 85, 1-31.
30.
Swanson, H.L. ( 2008). Working memory and intelligence in children: What develops ? Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 581-602.
31.
Swanson, H.L. ( 2010). Does the dynamic testing of working memory predict growth in nonword fluency and vocabulary in children with reading disabilities?Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 9, 51-77.
32.
Swanson, H.L., & Howard, C.B. ( 2005). Children with reading disabilities: Does dynamic assessment help in the classification? Learning Disability Quarterly , 28, 17-34.
33.
Swanson, H.L., & Jerman, O. ( 2006). Math disabilities: A selective meta-analysis of the literature . Review of Educational Research, 76, 249-274.
34.
Swanson, H.L., Jerman, O., & Zheng, X. ( 2008). Growth in working memory and mathematical problem solving in children at risk and not at risk for serious math difficulties. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 343-379.
35.
Swanson, H.L., & Lussier, C.M. ( 2001). A selective synthesis of the experimental literature on dynamic assessment. Review of Educational Research, 71, 321-363.
36.
Swanson, H.L., & Siegel, L. ( 2001). Learning disabilities as a working memory deficit. Issues in Education, 7, 1-48.
37.
Unsworth, N., & Engle, R.W. ( 2007). On the division of short-term memory and working memory: An examination of simple and complex span and their relation to higher order abilities. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 1038-1066.
38.
van der Sluis, S., van der Leij, A., & de Jong, P.F. ( 2005). Working memory in Dutch children with reading- and arithmetic-related LD. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 38, 207-221.
39.
Vygotsky, L.S. ( 1978). Interaction between learning and development. In M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman (Eds.), Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (pp. 79-91). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1935)
40.
Wilkinson, G.S. ( 1993). The Wide Range Achievement Test-3. Wilmington, DE: Wide Range.
