Cognitive Abilities in Children with Reading Disabilities and Controls: A Follow-Up Study

Abstract

Seventy children with reading disabilities and 75 control children who had been administered an extensive psychometric test battery were given a follow-up test approximately 4 years later. An independent sample of 35 children with reading disabilities and 22 control children were administered the same test battery on three occasions over an average interval of 8.6 years. When measures of reading performance, symbol-processing speed, and spatial reasoning were subjected to a mixed-model multivariate analysis of variance, significant effects due to group (reading disabled vs. control), time (initial test session vs. follow-up), and their interaction were found for both samples. Although children with reading disabilities manifested deficits at each age, the rate of improvement in measures of reading and spatial reasoning across age was highly similar for the affected and control groups. However, with regard to symbol-processing speed, differences between the groups were greater at the later ages. In general, results of this study demonstrate that reading disability tends to persist into young adulthood.