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Cited by 127Developmental and Educational NeuropsychologyReading and Literacy DevelopmentLanguage Development and Disorders

Working memory profiles of children with dyslexia, developmental language disorder, or both

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Gray, Shelley, Fox, Annie B., Green†, Samuel, Alt, Mary, Hogan, Tiffany P., Petscher, Yaacov, Cowan, Nelson·2019·Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
DOI 10.1044/2019_jslhr-l-18-0148PMC PMC6808376
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Abstract

Purpose: Compared to children with typical development, children with dyslexia, developmental language disorder (DLD), or both often demonstrate working memory deficits. It is unclear how pervasive the deficits are or whether the deficits align with diagnostic category. The purpose of this study was to determine whether different working memory profiles would emerge on a comprehensive battery of central executive, phonological, visuospatial, and binding working memory tasks and whether these profiles were associated with group membership. Method: Three hundred two 2nd graders with typical development, dyslexia, DLD, or dyslexia/DLD completed 13 tasks from the Comprehensive Assessment Battery for Children–Working Memory ( Gray, Alt, Hogan, Green, & Cowan, n.d. ) that assessed central executive, phonological, and visuospatial/attention components of working memory. Results: Latent class analyses yielded 4 distinct latent classes: low overall (21%), average with high number updating (30%), average with low number updating (12%), and high overall (37%). Children from each disability group and children from the typically developing group were present in each class. Discussion: Findings highlight the importance of knowing an individual child's working memory profile because working memory profiles are not synonymous with learning disabilities diagnosis. Thus, working memory assessments could contribute important information about children's cognitive function over and above typical psychoeducational measures.

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  • Stratifying base rates using a measure of crystalized intelligence (as defined by the NIHTB-CB with measures of receptive vocabulary and single word reading) may underestimate the abilities of English language learners and youth with certain neurodevelopmental disorders, such as reading disorder (dyslexia) and language disorder.

    “stratifying base rates using a measure of crystalized intelligence (as defined by the NIHTB-CB with measures of receptive vocabulary and single word reading) may underestimate the abilities of English language learners (Ortiz, 2019) and youth with certain neurodevelopmental disorders, such as reading disorder (i.e., dyslexia) and language disorder (de Bree et al., 2022; Gray et al., 2019).”

    From Cognitive weaknesses or impairments on the NIH toolbox cognition battery in children and adolescents: base rates in a normative sample and proposed methods for classification (2025) · cites this paper as Gray et al., 2019

    The Discussion (page unavailable) reports that children with dyslexia or developmental language disorder were distributed across working-memory classes and that working-memory profiles were not synonymous with diagnostic categories. This supports the concern that reading or language difficulties do not fully describe these children's abilities. The paper does not evaluate NIH Toolbox crystallized-intelligence scores or show that stratifying base rates with those scores underestimates ability. The English-language-learner portion is attributed to a different citation. (LLM, conf=0.82)

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Gray, S., Fox, A. B., Green†, S., Alt, M., Hogan, T. P., Petscher, Y., & Cowan, N.
Affiliations
  • Arizona State University (US)
  • MGH Institute of Health Professions (US)
  • Arizona State University, Tempe
  • University of Arizona (US)
  • Florida Center for Reading Research, Tallahassee
  • University of Missouri (US)
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Publisher
American Speech Language Hearing Association
Published
2019-06-19
Volume
62
Issue
6
Pages
1839-1858
ISSN
  • 1092-4388 (ISSN-L)
  • 1558-9102
DOI
10.1044/2019_jslhr-l-18-0148
PMC
PMC6808376
OpenAlex
W2946202826
Cited by
127
References
9
Citations by year
2026: 18 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1
FWCI
21.29
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01DC010784)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Developmental and Educational Neuropsychology
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
Keywords
working memory, dyslexia, specific language impairment, central executive, phonological working memory, visuospatial working memory, second grade students, learning disabilities
MeSH terms
Attention, Child, Dyslexia, Female, Humans, Language Development Disorders, Learning Disabilities, Male, Memory Disorders, Memory, Short-Term, Neuropsychological Tests, Phonetics

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