Cognitive flexibility deficits in children with specific reading comprehension difficulties

- Students with specific reading comprehension difficulties (RCD) have deficits in inhibition and working memory.
- Across two samples, students with RCD were significantly lower in cognitive flexibility than typically developing (TD) peers.
- Students with RCD are less able to actively switch between letter-sound information and meaning of print than TD students.
- Students with RCD showed no significant reading comprehension growth in response to regular reading instruction.
- Supplemental cognitive flexibility intervention resulted in significant gains in reading comprehension for students with RCD.

Substantial research indicates decoding difficulties are a primary contributor to reading comprehension problems. Yet, far less is known about sources of reading comprehension problems when readers' decoding abilities are appropriate for grade level (i.e., specific reading comprehension difficulties; RCD). Executive functioning contributes uniquely to RCD beyond traditional predictors, such as decoding ability and vocabulary. However, of the three core executive functions, working memory and inhibition have received relatively more research attention than cognitive flexibility, even though readers with RCD typically focus inflexibly on decoding processes without attention to meaning. Two studies assessed the contribution of cognitive flexibility to RCD. Study 1 employed a matched sampling approach to examine general and reading-specific cognitive flexibility in 24 readers with RCD and 24 typically developing readers (from a pool of 140 students) at the end of 1st and 2nd grades. Readers with RCD were significantly lower in reading-specific cognitive flexibility than typically developing peers, even when decoding, verbal ability, nonverbal matrix reasoning ability, and vocabulary were controlled; a similar, though not significant, difference emerged for general, color-shape cognitive flexibility. Study 2 revealed a teacher-delivered cognitive flexibility intervention produced significant improvements in reading comprehension for students with RCD (n = 18) who had not shown significant growth prior to intervention; after intervention, their reading comprehension growth was comparable to typically developing controls (n = 21).