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Executive functioning and reading achievement in school: a study of Brazilian children assessed by their teachers as "poor readers".

ABSTRACT: This study examined executive functioning and reading achievement in 106 6- to 8-year-old Brazilian children from a range of social backgrounds of whom approximately half lived below the poverty line. A particular focus was to explore the executive function profile of children whose classroom reading performance was judged below standard by their teachers and who were matched to controls on chronological age, sex, school type (private or public), domicile (Salvador/BA or São Paulo/SP) and socioeconomic status. Children completed a battery of 12 executive function tasks that were conceptual tapping cognitive flexibility, working memory, inhibition and selective attention. Each executive function domain was assessed by several tasks. Principal component analysis extracted four factors that were labeled "Working Memory/Cognitive Flexibility," "Interference Suppression," "Selective Attention," and "Response Inhibition." Individual differences in executive functioning components made differential contributions to early reading achievement. The Working Memory/Cognitive Flexibility factor emerged as the best predictor of reading. Group comparisons on computed factor scores showed that struggling readers displayed limitations in Working Memory/Cognitive Flexibility, but not in other executive function components, compared to more skilled readers. These results validate the account that working memory capacity provides a crucial building block for the development of early literacy skills and extends it to a population of early readers of Portuguese from Brazil. The study suggests that deficits in working memory/cognitive flexibility might represent one contributing factor to reading difficulties in early readers. This might have important implications for how educators might intervene with children at risk of academic under achievement.

SUBMITTER: Engel de Abreu PM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4050967 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Executive functioning and reading achievement in school: a study of Brazilian children assessed by their teachers as "poor readers".

Engel de Abreu Pascale M J PM Abreu Neander N Nikaedo Carolina C CC Puglisi Marina L ML Tourinho Carlos J CJ Miranda Mônica C MC Befi-Lopes Debora M DM Bueno Orlando F A OF Martin Romain R

Frontiers in psychology 20140610

This study examined executive functioning and reading achievement in 106 6- to 8-year-old Brazilian children from a range of social backgrounds of whom approximately half lived below the poverty line. A particular focus was to explore the executive function profile of children whose classroom reading performance was judged below standard by their teachers and who were matched to controls on chronological age, sex, school type (private or public), domicile (Salvador/BA or São Paulo/SP) and socioe ...[more]

PMID: 24959155

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Project description:IntroductionDifficulties in word-level reading skills are prevalent in Brazilian schools and may deter children from gaining the knowledge obtained through reading and academic achievement. Music education has emerged as a potential method to improve reading skills because due to a common neurobiological substratum.ObjectiveTo evaluate the effectiveness of music education for the improvement of reading skills and academic achievement among children (eight to 10 years of age) with reading difficulties.Method235 children with reading difficulties in 10 schools participated in a five-month, randomized clinical trial in cluster (RCT) in an impoverished zone within the city of São Paulo to test the effects of music education intervention while assessing reading skills and academic achievement during the school year. Five schools were chosen randomly to incorporate music classes (n?=?114), and five served as controls (n?=?121). Two different methods of analysis were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention: The standard method was intention-to-treat (ITT), and the other was the Complier Average Causal Effect (CACE) estimation method, which took compliance status into account.ResultsThe ITT analyses were not very promising; only one marginal effect existed for the rate of correct real words read per minute. Indeed, considering ITT, improvements were observed in the secondary outcomes (slope of Portuguese?=?0.21 [p<0.001] and slope of math?=?0.25 [p<0.001]). As for CACE estimation (i.e., complier children versus non-complier children), more promising effects were observed in terms of the rate of correct words read per minute [??=?13.98, p<0.001] and phonological awareness [??=?19.72, p<0.001] as well as secondary outcomes (academic achievement in Portuguese [??=?0.77, p<0.0001] and math [??=?0.49, p<0.001] throughout the school year).ConclusionThe results may be seen as promising, but they are not, in themselves, enough to make music lessons as public policy.

Dataset Information

Executive functioning and reading achievement in school: a study of Brazilian children assessed by their teachers as "poor readers".

Publications

Executive functioning and reading achievement in school: a study of Brazilian children assessed by their teachers as "poor readers".

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